Technology and Young Children: Bridging the Communication-Generation Gap

Technology and Young Children: Bridging the CommunicationGeneration Gap Sally Blake Flagler College, USA Denise Winsor University of Memphis, USA Lee Allen University of Memphis, USA

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Published in the United States of America by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue Hershey PA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.igi-global.com Copyright © 2012 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Technology and young children: bridging the communication-generation gap / Sally Blake, Denise Winsor, and Lee Allen, editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “This book presents the view that beliefs, history, research, and policy are essential to changing the educational system with technology”--Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-1-61350-059-0 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-61350-060-6 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-61350-061-3 (print & perpetual access) 1. Educational technology. 2. Internet in education. 3. Computers and children. I. Blake, Sally, 1949- II. Winsor, Denise, 1965- III. Allen, Lee, 1955LB1028.3.T396643 2012 372.133--dc23 2011026945

British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.

Practitioner Reviewers Judy Brown, Tennessee Pre-K Pilot Program, USA Mary Jo Palmer, Southwest Community College, USA Sandra Brown Turner, Barbara K. Lipman Early Childhood School and Research Institute, USA Carol Coudeau Young, Barbara K. Lipman Early Childhood School and Research Institute, USA

Faculty Reviewers Wendy Jacocks, South Eastern Louisiana University, USA L. Antonio Gonzalez, University of Texas at El Paso, USA Trish Ainsa, University of Texas at El Paso, USA Scott Starks, University of Texas at El Paso, USA Jorge Lopez, University of Texas at El Paso, USA

Author and Reviewer Andrew Gibbons, New Zealand Tertiary College, New Zealand Kathleen Spencer Cooter, Bellarmine University, USA Amy Smith, Pink Sky Education, USA

Table of Contents

Forward................................................................................................................................................ xii Preface.................................................................................................................................................. xiv Acknowledgment...............................................................................................................................xxiii Section 1 Understanding the Digital Communication Generation Gap: Values, Beliefs, Social Cultural Systems that Influence Teaching Practice Chapter 1 The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education: Where the Child Things Are? Adults, Children, Digital Monsters and the Spaces in Between.............................................................. 1 Andrew Neil Gibbons, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand Chapter 2 Enculturation of Young Children and Technology................................................................................. 24 Alexandru Spatariu, Georgetown College, USA Andrea Peach, Georgetown College, USA Susan Bell, Georgetown College, USA Chapter 3 Children’s Power for Learning in the Age of Technology..................................................................... 49 Julie McLeod, University of North Texas, USA Lin Lin, University of North Texas, USA Sheri Vasinda, Texas A&M University – Commerce, USA Chapter 4 Technology in Three American Preschools: Technological Influences of Ideology and Social Class............................................................................................................................................ 65 Allison S. Henward, Arizona State University & University of Memphis, USA

Chapter 5 Technology: Changing the Research Base on Young Children............................................................. 88 Shannon Audley-Piotorwksi, University of Memphis, USA Neha Kumar, University of Memphis, USA Yeh Hsueh, University of Memphis, USA Melanie Sumner, University of Memphis, USA Section 2 Bridging the Gap between Technology-Based Educational Research Methods and Child Development Chapter 6 Bridging the Communication Gap through Video Research: The Preschool in Three Cultures Method................................................................................................................................... 111 Yeh Hsueh, University of Memphis, USA Joseph Tobin, Arizona State University, USA Section 3 Bridging the Gap between Pedagogy and Technology Chapter 7 Early Childhood Teachers: Closing the Digital-Divide....................................................................... 126 Kevin Thomas, Bellarmine University, USA Kathleen Spencer Cooter, Bellarmine University, USA Chapter 8 Technology and Second Language Learning: Developmental Recommendations for Early-Childhood Education................................................................................................................. 151 Nathan E. Ziegler, The University of Toledo, USA Florian C. Feucht, The University of Toledo, USA Chapter 9 Science Technology and Young Children............................................................................................ 180 Brian H. Giza, University of Texas at El Paso, USA Chapter 10 Mathematics Learning through the Use of Technology....................................................................... 199 Amy M. Smith, Pink Sky Education, USA Amy R. Gentry, Shelby County Schools, USA Sally Blake, Flagler College, USA

Chapter 11 Technology for Young Children with Special Needs........................................................................... 222 Sara C. Bicard, University of Memphis, USA David F. Bicard, University of Memphis, USA Section 4 Bridging the Gap between Policy and Practice Chapter 12 Bridging the Gap between Policy and Implementation: Preschool Education in Mexico, Latin America and Spain...................................................................................................................... 242 Jorge Lopez, University of Texas at El Paso, USA Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 261 About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 290 Index.................................................................................................................................................... 295

Detailed Table of Contents

Forward................................................................................................................................................ xii Preface.................................................................................................................................................. xiv Acknowledgment...............................................................................................................................xxiii Section 1 Understanding the Digital Communication Generation Gap: Values, Beliefs, Social Cultural Systems that Influence Teaching Practice Chapter 1 The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education: Where the Child Things Are? Adults, Children, Digital Monsters and the Spaces in Between.............................................................. 1 Andrew Neil Gibbons, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand This chapter explores the bridging the communication-generation gap through an analysis of the child’s play with hi-tech toys. The analysis of the young child’s play with these toys employs narrative from the show Digimon in order to critique predominant themes in relation to learning and development. These themes highlight challenges to binary oppositions of adult-child, self-other, and artificial-real. In troubling these oppositions, the very idea of the gap becomes of interest in that in the gap are potential alternatives for adults who seek a critical understanding of the complex terrains in which they engage the young child. Chapter 2 Enculturation of Young Children and Technology................................................................................. 24 Alexandru Spatariu, Georgetown College, USA Andrea Peach, Georgetown College, USA Susan Bell, Georgetown College, USA Children are exposed to technology in many ways. As technology use in informal settings like the home, the community, the library, the zoos, and museums increases, children are exposed to a variety of applications and technology availability. Each generation of children come to early childhood programs with increasingly different experiences and exposure to technology. Technology has become a strong

cultural influence in the lives of children, and we need to explore and think about how this will impact development and learning. Chapter 3 Children’s Power for Learning in the Age of Technology..................................................................... 49 Julie McLeod, University of North Texas, USA Lin Lin, University of North Texas, USA Sheri Vasinda, Texas A&M University – Commerce, USA This chapter situates discussions of children’s power for learning in the context of new media and technology. We assert that for learning to take place, children must exert their own power and take initiatives in their learning; yet, the current power structure of classrooms inhibits children from exerting their power and motivation for learning. Tracing the seminal works on power, we provide examples of children’s power in learning and argue for a power structure transformation necessary in a technologyrich classroom of the twenty-first century. Chapter 4 Technology in Three American Preschools: Technological Influences of Ideology and Social Class............................................................................................................................................ 65 Allison S. Henward, Arizona State University & University of Memphis, USA This chapter explores the marriage of popular culture and technology and its place in preschool settings. It is specifically concerned with the manner in which social class and preschool ideology contribute to or detract from children’s access to popular culture technology. Chapter 5 Technology: Changing the Research Base on Young Children............................................................. 88 Shannon Audley-Piotorwksi, University of Memphis, USA Neha Kumar, University of Memphis, USA Yeh Hsueh, University of Memphis, USA Melanie Sumner, University of Memphis, USA Technology has changed the potential for research of young children dramatically. Technology has allowed researchers to capture nuances of children’s interactions such as eye movement in infants, heart rate, and physiological reactions that researcher’s could never accurately track without the new technologies. Understanding the role of technology and the evidence of children’s development has opened new ideas about the capabilities of children. Teachers need to understand how these technologies are being used and how researchers support learning and development based on this new approach to information collection with young children.

Section 2 Bridging the Gap between Technology-Based Educational Research Methods and Child Development Chapter 6 Bridging the Communication Gap through Video Research: The Preschool in Three Cultures Method................................................................................................................................... 111 Yeh Hsueh, University of Memphis, USA Joseph Tobin, Arizona State University, USA Technology is a valuable tool for researchers of young children for many reasons. This chapter discusses the use of video as an ethnographic research tool for studying preschool education and offers insight into how video can be used to inform researchers, practitioners, and parents of young children. The approach referred to as video-cued multivocal ethnography is intended to highlight differences across cultures, and to reveal continuity and change in preschool education of three countries over the course of a generation. But this approach is also valuable for promoting teacher reflection on, and developing cultural understandings of how teachers’ practice embodies the culture in which they live and work. Section 3 Bridging the Gap between Pedagogy and Technology Chapter 7 Early Childhood Teachers: Closing the Digital-Divide....................................................................... 126 Kevin Thomas, Bellarmine University, USA Kathleen Spencer Cooter, Bellarmine University, USA This chapter reviews the state of technology training for early childhood educators in teacher preparation institutions across the country. Using NCATE and NAEYC standards as benchmarks of practice, the chapter outlines some current issues and research on technology training at the preservice level, such as course sequence, textbook choice, content infusion, field experiences, et cetera. The chapter also outlines three technologies, Web 2.0, Google Earth, and the Virtual Manipulatives that are accessible, free to users, require little teacher training, and have evidence to support their instructional benefits. These three well-developed technologies can easily be introduced to students and teachers as exemplars of constructivist pedagogical technology in early childhood science and mathematics classrooms. Activities using each are included. Chapter 8 Technology and Second Language Learning: Developmental Recommendations for Early-Childhood Education................................................................................................................. 151 Nathan E. Ziegler, The University of Toledo, USA Florian C. Feucht, The University of Toledo, USA Technology is often viewed as a necessary component for the facilitation of learning, especially for second language learners in early-childhood education. However, integrating technology in the classroom

is a difficult task. The existing literature often does not bridge the fields of technology, second language learning, and cognitive development in childhood. Therefore, the goal of this chapter is to develop a theoretical framework stemming from a critical literature review of conceptual and empirical works as they pertain to technology, second language learning, and cognitive development. This framework is used to describe conceptual issues and to identify educational implications for the use of technology in the second language classroom in early-childhood education. Furthermore, the chapter concludes with educational, conceptual, and methodological implications as they pertain to technology research and development in early second language classrooms. Chapter 9 Science Technology and Young Children............................................................................................ 180 Brian H. Giza, University of Texas at El Paso, USA Teachers of young children have access to an ever increasing diversity of technology tools. This chapter provides a framework for evaluating and applying tools for science in all classrooms. It includes a series of vignettes that illustrate the application of technology in the context of a tools-task-strategy approach. Chapter 10 Mathematics Learning through the Use of Technology....................................................................... 199 Amy M. Smith, Pink Sky Education, USA Amy R. Gentry, Shelby County Schools, USA Sally Blake, Flagler College, USA Technology can capture young children’s attention, motivate them, and help them construct early mathematics concepts in meaningful ways. This chapter examines the nature of children’s mathematics learning and how technology can support learning on three levels: (a) a teacher information resource; (b) teaching support; and (c) the learning process for children. It provides a description of how technology tools, when connected to sound inquiry-based pedagogy and formative assessment, can facilitate learning in today’s increasingly technological world. Considerations for future research as well as a list of relevant, practical resources for teachers to experiment with in their own classrooms are included. Chapter 11 Technology for Young Children with Special Needs........................................................................... 222 Sara C. Bicard, University of Memphis, USA David F. Bicard, University of Memphis, USA Children come to early childhood programs with a wide range of learning abilities, languages, cultural backgrounds, and educational experiences. Most classrooms also include children with special needs or exceptional children, who differ from these typically developing children to such a degree that an individualized program of adapted, specialized education is required to meet their needs (Heward, 2009). This chapter provides a framework for the use of technology to assist these exceptional children in early childhood and primary level classrooms.

Section 4 Bridging the Gap between Policy and Practice Chapter 12 Bridging the Gap between Policy and Implementation: Preschool Education in Mexico, Latin America and Spain...................................................................................................................... 242 Jorge Lopez, University of Texas at El Paso, USA The last decade brought major change to the Mexican educational system as sweeping reforms across all levels were implemented. In particular the early years of education became the focus of legislation to increase quality, open access, and improve curriculum. Mexico captured international attention when it became the first country to make it obligatory for the State to provide pre-school education services for children 3 to 6 years of age and required parents to see that their children attend a public or private pre-school. This chapter explores the gap between policy and implementation of early childhood and technology reform. This sweeping reform is one of the first international attempts to support early childhood education at this level. Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 261 About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 290 Index.................................................................................................................................................... 295

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Foreword

This book brings together two of the most exciting and important areas of educational research being conducted today. The importance of the first few years of life to the cognitive and social development of a child cannot be overstated. In their book on school reform, Disrupting Class, Christensen, Horn, and Johnson, state (2008): And a rather stunning body of research is emerging that suggests that starting these reforms at kindergarten, let alone in elementary, middle, or high school, is far too late. By some estimates, 98 percent of education spending occurs after the basic intellectual capacities of children have been mostly determined. (p. 148) Equally intriguing for many researchers is the potential for well designed educational technologies to create customized opportunities that promote rich learning interactions. Christensen et al. argue that the maturity of the computer based learning industry will make “student-centric technology a reality” (p. 123). What this all means is that the ideas presented in this book will have an ever increasing chance at implementation and subsequent impact. On a personal level, I am intrigued by the book as it provides an opportunity for me to reflect on the upbringing and development of my two young children. As an educational technology researcher, I frequently justify the acquisition of the latest gadgets as a professional expense. I then give them to my boys and watch how they interact with the different programs and devices. Many of them engender initial curiosity but few hold their continued interest. One of the common threads of the popular devices was the capacity to interact in some way with friends. For my generation, the killer app was email. For subsequent generations, it seems to be social networking sites. The gaps between generations and the use of these contemporary technologies are large. While some of this is to be expected, the degree of the difference can present monumental challenges in supporting the development of our youth. For example, 73% of teens report using social networking sites compared to 40% of adults over 30 (Pew, 2009). Unfortunately, it is very difficult to find information regarding the use of technology in the very young. When the teen use of social networking sites is further broken down the use of 12-13 year olds is 55% and 14-17 is 82%. Clearly the use decreases with younger students. However, it is just as clear that there is at least some use among the very young. Age restrictions for user accounts on services such as Facebook, Google, and MySpace limit the access to widely used tools. However, many children (my own included) are quickly finding alternatives through companies such as Disney and Nickelodeon. The chapters in this book will help build an understanding of the import (and possible danger) of these sites to the development of young children.

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Another technology that will inevitably find its way into the hands of young children is the mobile phone. You do not need to travel far to hear adults lamenting about the widespread use of cell phones among the youth. In particular, the pervasiveness of text messaging seems to rankle many an adult. The picture of a group of teens at table texting away with negligible interaction in the group (at least verbally) can elicit emotions ranging from confusion to anger. Of course many of us have tempered our criticisms as we have begun to appreciate the positive attributes of these new communication technologies. Personally, I appreciate the ability to send short, typically logistical messages to others without the requisite formalities required of a phone call. These devices are now as powerful as any personal computer built 10 years ago. They also have more intuitive and natural interfaces. With these devices, well designed applications that take advantage of the audio/video capture and interactions with others will lead to an explosion of learning opportunities for young children. As you will see in the different chapters of this book, the effective use of technology is dependent upon how and why it is being used. As a former high school biology teacher, I was very interested in the potential of virtual dissection software. While the virtual tools had advantages over the real (albeit deceased) it was not clear cut. For example, while the computer diagrams made the organs easily identifiable, the real organism was much less obliged to make the necessary clues obvious. As the technology advanced, the attributes of the well designed virtual systems helped close the gap between the real and the virtual. This tipped the balance towards the virtual dissection. The important lesson from this is that educators and researchers should be clear about the purpose and goals of any technology use. What is it that this technology provides or what problem does it solve? This is what makes this book so valuable. General statements about the value of technology to learning are of little value without an understanding of the details of design and implementation. In this book, you will find details about the use of technology with specific goals in mind. This includes discussions of uses in learning mathematics, science, and with students with special needs. These descriptions are framed with more general investigations of the epistemological societal concerns. Kenneth Hartley University of Nevada at Las Vegas, USA

REFERENCES Christensen, C. M., Horn, M. B., & Johnson, C. W. (2008). Disrupting class. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Madden, M. (June, 2010). Four or more: The new demographic. Pew Internet & American Life Project LITA President’s Program ALA – June 27, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/Presentations/2010/Jun/Four-or-More--The-New-Demographic.aspx

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Preface

In our book, Technology and Young Children: Bridging the Digital Communication –Generation Gap, we write about the socio-cultural gap between educational environments, teachers, and children as influenced by technology. A generation gap implies a vast difference in cultural norms between a younger generation and their elders. A generation gap is a frustrating lack of communication between young and old, a stretch of time that separates cultures within a society, allowing each to develop their own character (Safire, 2008). The popularization of the term generation gap is attributed to the 1960’s era in the United States when socio-cultural changes diversified the behavior and values between generations at an unprecedented rate. This, in part has been explained by the size of the young generation during the 1960s, which gave it unprecedented power and willingness to rebel against societal norms. We believe this gap was intensified through the evolving cultural changes influenced by technology communication systems during that time. The current gap, referred to as the digital communication-generation gap is different from others as the rapid development and acceptance of technological tools have changed the interactions and relationships across four generations and is exponential. Technology has shifted the traditional generational power roles from the adult as the expert to children as experts and is an important component of the current generation gap, a change that redefines the role of teachers and education and what learning means to the citizen of this generation. The keepers of knowledge, the schools, have lost their place at the head of the line as researchers have not found the innovations of technology in classrooms. Instead technology innovation is breaking out of the administrative office leaving teachers behind to maintain their traditional classroom practices (Collins & Halverson 2009). The concept of taking courses in schools to learn is becoming antiquated as the goal of life-long learning becomes a reality when learners negotiate their own learning through a variety of experiences not available in schools. The chapters in this book present the view that beliefs, history, research, and policy are essential to changing the relationships of the social, cultural educational system with technology. The content should help teachers reflect on what is happening as the center of learning power moves outside a classroom. The suggestions for use of technology are designed to help educators ease into the use of technology rather than leap off the cliff of innovation, developing confidence and competence in their teaching. We do not try to push educators into the future world of technology but give them ideas for the here and now. The book is organized into four sections related to the digital generation gap. Our book describes how technology has impacted and can impact the learning of young children through formal and informal environments. This includes ways technology has dramatically changed research of children and their capabilities for academic success, the power structure of schools, the access to information, and social networking interactions.

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The new generation of children comes to early childhood programs with many informal experiences in technology and as members of the social communication (millennium) generation. There is much written about this gap between the children and the teachers of children in the comfort levels of technology acceptance and use. Bridging the communication/generation gap has become a concern because with today’s technology, that generation gap is getting fairly wide and continues to grow across all levels of education. We hope to help teachers and educators start building the bridges to connect the gap between generations as they read the contents of this book. The future of schools will depend on the acceptance of how this new generation learns, not how we think children should act and learn. Teachers of young children are the technology gatekeepers in childcare programs. They are vital to the appropriate use of technology, yet little is documented concerning training and understanding of teachers’ use in classrooms. Teachers need to understand how to develop learning, what types of learning should be facilitated, and how to serve the needs of diverse populations using technology. Computers are more than tools for bringing efficiency to traditional approaches; they can open new and unforeseen avenues for learning.

Audience The proposed audience for this book includes university faculty for use in early childhood courses, Head Start and child care center teachers and professional development personnel, and public school teachers and administrators working with young children. The book will assist parents and families to better understand how technology influences the lives of young children. We propose an international market also for similar childhood programs. College students and college educators are our target audience. This book will be highly suitable as a personal reference for early childhood practitioners, for administrators, and for parents of young children. Early childhood educational organizations such as Head Start programs and the National Association for the Education of Young Children, childcare centers, preschools, kindergartens, and primary schools (1st through 3rd grades) might find this book useful. As a secondary market, both public and university libraries, book stores, book clubs, as well as educators, school personnel, educators, and university libraries may find this writing of interest. There is inclusion of international authors for use in multiple countries. We anticipate this book will be also important for parents of young children to help them better understand how technology will be used and impact their children’s development and education and more important their changing roles in learning.

Section 1. Understanding the Digital Communication Generation Gap: Values, Beliefs, Social Cultural Systems that Influence Teaching Practice Our first section explores how technology and the beliefs about technology influence and change the world view of educational environments, children and teachers. This section includes six chapters that discuss the binary oppositions of adult-child, self-other, and artificial-real, the cultural history of technology, the changing social cultural power structures of education influenced by technological advances, and how the epistemology of teachers guides instructional decisions and classroom environments.

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Chapter 1: The Impact on Technology on Early Childhood Education: Where the Child Things are? Adults, Children, Digital Monsters and the Spaces in Between In our first chapter Andrew Neil Gibbons discusses bridging the communication-generation gap through an analysis of the child’s play with hi-tech toys. Through early play experiences with the range of toys, whether digital or not, the child plays with the symbols, themes and values associating real products with their fictional source, and with the other multimedia manifestations that offer children the opportunity to engage with the questions of the nature of real, artificial, conscious, alive, dead, adult, and child. He illustrates the gaps that appear between technological generations through the show Digimon, a term that means “Digital Monsters,” and is a media franchise encompassing anime, manga, toys, video games, trading card games, and other media. This chapter explores the complexity of the toy and of the toys contemporary troubling of adulthood and has regarded the latest hi-tech shows as productive in supporting such exploration of a set of binary oppositions. These themes highlight challenges to binary oppositions of adult-child, self-other, and artificial-real. Andrew writes about different ways of both understanding and analyzing gaps between child and adult through the symbol of the toy and writes about the importance of preparing an ICT-rich environment.

Chapter 2: Enculturation of Young Children and Technology The second chapter talks about the enculturation of children through technology. Alex Spatariu, Andrea Peach, and Susan Bell discuss key points about how social institutions and informal experiences shape the world of the young child. They use the term technology to encompass more than just computers but include many experiences that young children bring to the classroom. The chapter is divided into three main discussion sections. The first section discusses various types of technology used by children in non-school settings. Parental issues and developmental considerations are included to give the reader a more comprehensive understanding of how the digital age touches all parts of children’s lives. The second section examines the use of technologies with young children from a developmental perspective. The authors also address concerns with the uses of these technologies in relationship to teaching and learning. Authors also hope to dispel some of the technology myths that teachers of young children have about technology and learning in the early childhood classroom. The concept of the digital divide is addressed in this section as well. The last section of this chapter discusses technology evaluation issues and concrete use of technology by educators of young children.

Chapter 3: Children’s Power for Learning in the Age of Technology In chapter 3 Julie McLeod, Lin Lin, and Sheri Vasinda discuss children’s power through technology in relation to education and educational environments. Technology has changed the power structures of education, a change many adults may find uncomfortable. Children are now experts in something that is truly important in the adult world, which dramatically changes the interactions and roles in educational environments. The authors believe that current power structure of classrooms inhibits children from exerting their power and motivation for learning. As schools move from an outdated model based on the need for obedient workers during the Industrial Age into the Digital Age, teachers need to reflect on the needs of today’s citizenship, life-style, and skills for the future work force. Their view of social power as the capacity for action is especially compelling, particularly because technology has enabled even very

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young children to take action in society in ways that are important, public, and inconceivable without the technology. The identification of types of power should allow educators to identify beliefs about their changing roles in classrooms and the commitment and liberation for their own and children’s learning.

Chapter 4: Technology in Three American Preschools: Technological Influences on Ideology and Social Class Chapter 4 is an ethnography: Technological Influences on Ideology and Social Class. This chapter explores the marriage of popular culture and technology in preschool settings, specifically the manner in which social class and preschool ideology contribute to or detract from children’s access to popular culture technology. It stems from a comparative ethnographic study of popular culture in three preschools that differ socio-economically and ideologically. After reading this chapter the reader should develop a better understanding of the connection of ideology and social class in the acceptance or rejection of technology as a pedagogical tool. It attempts to call into question practices that are seen as natural or “appropriate” as specific to a cultural group. By examining this topic from a critical perspective it is the intent to clarify curricular and pedagogical tools as not without class biases and intentions. This chapter discusses class discrimination as well as religious and theoretical beliefs in the appearance of technology in both educational programs and the home lives of preschoolers. Allison writes about the emerging technological age, and in the era of accountability, preschools are dealing with technology in very different manners. This chapter shows that in early childhood sectors, the embracing of technology is not universal, and if it is, depends heavily on the context in which it is used. Media images, viewed in some settings as fancifully benign are the same images that are rejected for their questionable morals or influence from mass marketing. Furthermore, this ethnography demonstrates that within preschool sectors ideology and social class plays a major role for the type of popular culture technology that children in the United States will interact with in various preschools, and this context often contributes to the meaning that they make out of these images.

Section 2. Bridging the Gap between Technology-Based Educational Research Methods and Child Development The second section, Bridging the Gap between Technology-based Educational Research Methods and Child Development, explores how technology has changed research of young children. The two chapters in this section discuss the role of technology in child development research and how technology has enhanced the power of observational data. The new understanding of children’s potential due to technological advances has dramatically changed what we once accepted as guides and limitations for child study. This information is important for teachers as they are the key to implementing research implications in classrooms.

Chapter 5: Technology: Changing the Research Base on Young Children In chapter 5, Shannon Audley-Piotorwksi, Neha Kumar, Yeh Hsueh, and Melanie Sumner discuss how technology has changed the understanding of child development and learning. The writing team for this chapter is unique as it includes a member of the millennium generation who is already engaged in research using technology. Neha is an example of how this generation comes to educational environments with

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competence and confidence in the tools of technology. Understanding the role of technology and the evidence of children’s development has opened new ideas about the capabilities of children. Teachers need to understand how these technologies are being used and how researchers support learning and development based on this new approach to information collection with young children. What we know about young children’s development is dependent upon the availability of technology. The discussion informs teachers about common technologies, and how these technologies are used in research on the development of young children. The writing helps teachers understand how technology has helped advance knowledge about older issues, such as literacy development, in research, and how these findings indirectly inform pedagogy. Some major implications for teachers include that children’s emotional and behavior regulation is not simply a reflection of the child’s will, but is based on individual differences in the child’s nervous system, as measured by heart rate and cortisol levels. It can be seen how factors outside of the child’s control, such as poverty, can literally reshape a child’s memory and change the brain’s ability to think critically. Likewise, brain imaging technologies, such as fMRI, have also suggested that emotions can influence what information a child learns, and how that knowledge can be applied. The availability of new technology allows researchers to continuously refine their understanding of young children’s development. It is important for educators and parents to be aware of the current technologies that researchers use, and how these technologies advance knowledge about young children’s development. If educators understand the current technology and trends in research on child development, they are one step closer to merging research with classroom pedagogy.

Chapter 6: The Role of Video in the Preschool in Three Cultures Method The sixth chapter written by Yeh Hsueh and Joseph Tobin illustrates the influence technology is having on approaches to research and study of children and teachers. Yeh and Joseph discuss the use of video as an ethnographic research tool for studying preschool education and offers insight into how video can be used to inform researchers, practitioners, and parents of young children. The approach referred to as video-cued multivocal ethnography is intended to highlight differences across cultures, and to reveal continuity and change in preschool education. The study described in this chapter investigated preschool programs in three countries over the course of a generation. As the researchers worked through their study, they discovered the videos were also valuable for promoting teachers’ reflections and development of cross-cultural understandings. The authors discuss this innovative approach to using video in early childhood education research, an approach that uses video not as data, but rather as a stimulus or cue for getting teachers and directors in different cultures to reflect on the thinking behind their practices. While technology may seem to collapse and shorten the ethnography’s traditional period of extended fieldwork there have been other benefits. Video produces rich insights not evident through traditional observations. By reviewing the data researchers can see new nuances of interactions on video which open new doors to investigation. This question-generating aspect of the video-cued interviews, especially in the repeated interviews with key informants, is also conducive to capturing features of dynamic reforms in early childhood education. The reflection of the authors on their research gave them new insight into technology and ways to adapt their work for use with pre-service and in-service professional development of teachers. The Preschool in Three Cultures chapter address the concerns of quality research design as it continues to add to a growing scientific knowledge base of what influences preschool environments from multiple dimensions and diverse perspectives. The community of practitioners and researchers is one

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of the powerful ideas from this method. The researchers join teachers, administrators and parents in grappling with their own taken-for-granted beliefs and practices in a new light, as well as to widen their horizons of what is possible by being exposed to approaches used in other places in their own culture and in other cultures.

Section 3. Bridging the Gap between Pedagogy and Technology The third section, Bridging the Gap between Pedagogy and Technology, discusses how technology can support the educational environment through five domains. These are teacher training, second language learners, science, mathematics, and special needs children. The integration of technology must go beyond placing a computer in a classroom. These chapters give specific examples of how to use technology to support instruction and how technology supports domain specific learning for teachers and children. The technology myths associated with early childhood education and learning are challenged in these chapters to help teachers better understand how technology supports instructional practice.

Chapter 7: Early Childhood Teachers: Closing the Digital –Divide In Chapter 7, Kevin Thomas and Kathleen Spencer Cooter argue that teachers and others working in the world of education at both the practitioner and preservice levels have been slow to respond to the tremendous and irreversible cultural shift, thus creating a second and even more inequitable digital divide, the divide of technological opportunity. They discuss appropriate change for teacher training programs in early childhood education to close the digital divide through both social cultural change and practical classroom applications. This chapter reviews the state of technology training for early childhood educators in teacher preparation institutions across the country. Using NCATE and NAEYC standards as benchmarks of practice, the chapter outlines some current issues and research on technology training at the preservice level - such as course sequence, textbook choice, content infusion, field experiences, et cetera. The chapter also identifies three technologies for use by teachers: Web 2.0, Google Earth, and the Virtual Manipulatives that are accessible, free to users, require little teacher training, and have evidence to support their instructional benefits. These three well-developed technologies can easily be introduced to students and teachers as exemplars of constructivist pedagogical technology in early childhood science and mathematics classrooms. Suggested activities for teachers using these tools and resources are included to help teachers start or increase their use of technology.

Chapter 8: Technology and Second Language Learning: Developmental Recommendations for Early-Childhood Education The eighth chapter, by Nathan E. Ziegler and Florian C. Feucht, addresses the growing population of second language learners in classrooms and how language and technology can be mutually supportive. Nathan and Florian write about second language classrooms from a developmental and methodological perspective. They establish a theoretical framework that looks at the relationship between cognitive development, second language teaching methods, and technology. More specifically, the framework aligns the different teaching methods and technology with Piaget’s four levels of cognitive development. Second language learners at the sensory motor, preoperational, and concrete level of cognitive development should be using technology that presents communication in a second language in real-

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world contexts. This is even true for the learner at the formal operations; however, if technology is too abstract, the learners will not be able to comprehend meaning behind the sounds and the texts. As the second language learner develops, they are able to understand more abstract aspects of communication and can use technology that facilitates their second language abilities at the formal operations and meta-cognitive level. They provide a rubric to assist second language teachers in an early-childhood classroom in designing developmentally appropriate lesson plans with technology. Nathan and Florian use a lesson as the thread that binds this chapter together so teachers can see how even good planning may not be age appropriate for second language learners. This chapter bridges the fields of technology, second language learning, and cognitive development in childhood. The authors try to help teachers better understand how their teaching methods correspond with the learners’ cognitive stage of development and the technology that is chosen to assist in instruction. The authors give suggestions and rationale for different types of technology to support teachers as they work with second language learners in their classrooms. The chapter concludes with educational, conceptual, and methodological implications as they pertain to technology research and development in early second language classrooms.

Chapter 9: Science Technology and Young Children In Chapter 9, Brian Giza provides a framework for evaluating and applying tools for science in all classrooms. Teachers of young children have access to an ever increasing diversity of technology tools. Brian includes a series of vignettes that illustrate the application of technology in the context of a toolstask-strategy approach. Early childhood and primary level science teachers, especially novice science teachers, are confronted with a number of challenges when they try to integrate technology into the classroom. Sometimes the tools that they have are not appropriate for young children. Sometimes the tools that they have are not appropriate for anyone - they are obsolete hand-me-downs, computers and software passed from upper grades to the earlier ones. Fortunately, partly due to the reduction of costs of computers, school districts are beginning to equip early grades with computers that are of recent vintage. Even when the computers or other technology tools available are modern and grade-level appropriate, teacher may not realize how best to use them in their teaching. Brian writes about ways to develop and assist an engaged and active campus planning team and provides advice and suggestions for the individual teacher who may or may not benefit from the resources that an effective support structure may give. To help users assess and integrate technology in pedagogically sound ways, he frames the use of technology in terms of tools, tasks, and strategies. We recommend that the user is best served when they first consider the task that they want to accomplish before they select the tool - and that they should consider the strategy (pedagogy) that they wish to use before they proceed into the using a particular tool for a task.

Chapter 10: Mathematics Learning through the Use of Technology The tenth chapter, written by Amy Smith, Amy Gentry, and Sally Blake, provides a description of how some technological tools, when applied with sound inquiry-based pedagogy and driven by ongoing assessment, can facilitate learning in today’s increasingly technological world. The authors discuss three broad applications of technology for early childhood teachers to support mathematics learning. These are: technology as a teacher resource, technology as a support tool for teaching, and technology as process support for learning. This chapter examines the nature of children’s learning and the associated impacts that technology is making on the young learner. Amy, Amy, and Sally discuss elements of

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effective technology-based teaching. They include a discussion of some of the issues surrounding technology and mathematics for young children including the use of Mathematics and Technology Talk for teachers. The identification of technology and mathematics in relation to Bloom’s taxonomy of higher order thinking can guide teachers away from the traditional, memorization-only approach to teaching. The authors talk about age-appropriate use of technology and mathematics including a sample checklist for assessment and a framework for developing assessment tools. Considerations for future research as well as a list of relevant, practical resources for teachers to experiment within their own classrooms are also included to help teachers move towards a more tech-friendly instructional approach and classroom environment. For the sake of brevity, much of the information shared in this chapter is framed around a kindergarten (ages 4-5 in the United States) level; however, with simple modifications, the information can be applied to a range of learning differences. It is the intent of the authors to give examples that focus on the mathematics and technology rather than specific age levels. There are some ideas that would be appropriate across the age levels 3 to 9.

Chapter 11: Technology for Young Children with Special Needs In Chapter 11, David and Sara Bicard write about the amazing changes technology has made in the lives of special needs learners. The Bicards explain how technology supports children identified with disabilities that qualify for special education, including physical disabilities such as deafness or blindness, mental disabilities, such as Down’s syndrome and autism, medical conditions, such as oxygen dependence or traumatic brain injury, learning deficits, such as dyslexia, and behavioral disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorders. These children would have difficulty accessing and participating in the instructional environment in public educational institutions without technology. David and Sara write about how teachers can give special needs children the opportunity to participate and succeed in what is considered the general curriculum for children in schools. The gap in special education is often between curriculum delivery for special needs children and traditional teacher training programs. As inclusion of these children becomes a reality in all classrooms, teachers may feel inadequate to deal with the responsibility of instructional practices to support special needs learning. Too often it is assumed these children are not capable of learning the material required in the high accountability environment of modern schools. This chapter approaches the use of technology in early childhood programs through three types of applications: adaptation of existing computers and other technology (adapt); computer software programs to address particular skill deficits (address); and specialized technology used to assist the functioning of a child with disabilities (assist). The Bicards give specific descriptions of each type of assistive technology devices and how teachers can use these to support learning. They identify possible solutions to financing and finding assistive technology for teachers and suggestions for working with parents. This chapter provides a framework for the use of technology to assist these exceptional children in early childhood and primary level classrooms.

Section 4. Bridging the Gap between Policy and Practice The fourth section, Bridging the Gap between Policy and Practice, is an abridged case study of what has happened in Mexico, the first country to implement mandatory preschool education for all children. This dramatic mandate brought promise for parents and children as Mexico attempted to provide support for all young children’s educational development. This chapter discusses the issues with policy and

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implementation and how technology has evolved in preschool programs in Mexico, Spain, and the Latin American Countries. The lessons learned from this dramatic reform effort will inform teachers about the gap between policy and implementation and help them rethink their role in change.

Chapter 12: Bridging the Gap between Policy and Implementation: Preschool Education in Mexico, Latin America and Spain The twelth and final chapter in this book explores an abridged case study of the implementation of reform in early childhood education. The dramatic reform in Mexico during the last decade brought international focus to the educational systems as the Law of Mandatory Pre-schooling made Mexico the only country in the world with mandatory education for 3-year olds. The reform policies were influenced by the changing economic policies as Mexico surged forward in development of technology related industries. As Mexico continued to move toward a more technological state, it was vital that the schools keep up by preparing the children of Mexico for global economy. Jorge Lopez, the author of this chapter, discusses the gap between policy and implementation of reform efforts in an attempt to help teachers better realizes the importance of their role in political decisions. The chapter examines the issues when top down reform (decisions about policy made by politicians or governing agencies) is implemented without the counsel of practitioners and how teachers and educational environments address issues to support children’s learning. Jorge also builds a case for the importance of early childhood teachers and programs in the development of thinking and explains the influences that have changed him from a Nuclear Physicist to an advocate for the field of early education. This chapter includes data from Spain, Mexico, and Latin American countries relating to the realities of technology use in these countries. Lessons learned from this chapter can help teachers become stronger advocates for reform, reflect on change and their role, and find solutions to closing the gaps between policy and implementation in their educational institutions.

Summary The issues discussed in this book are not isolated to early childhood environments but evident across the continuum of education. The university must also rethink their ideas about learning and what students need to succeed in the new digital age.

REFERENCES Collins, A., & Halverson, R. (2009). Rethinking education in the age of technology: The digital revolution and schooling in America. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Hofer, B. K. (2001). Personal epistemology research: Implications for learning and teaching. Journal of Educational Psychology Review, 13, 353–383. doi:10.1023/A:1011965830686 Safire, W. (2008). Safire’s political dictionary. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

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Acknowledgment

Barbara K. Lipman Early Childhood School and Research Institute. The Barbara K. Lipman Early Childhood School and Research Institute under the direction of Sandra Turner-Brown is located on the University of Memphis campus. This school is partially supported through the Lipman Foundation, contributions, tuition, and the College of Education. Without the collaboration of this school and teachers we would never be able to conduct our research. These professionals and the children and parents of Lipman are our lifeline to research, practice, and intellectual stimulation for our work. We want to acknowledge their support, expertise, contributions, and patience with us as we continue to write. These extraordinary professionals are identified below. Sandra Brown Turner: My history with Lipman School dates back to 1975 when I did my student teaching here and then in 1986-1987 when I was honored to be a graduate assistant. Before becoming the Director of Lipman School in July 2000, I was a tenured Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at Southwest Tennessee Community College. I have served on numerous local, state, regional, and national boards, task forces, committees, and presented workshops or keynotes all over the United States. I am published in a variety of professional journals with a particular interest in the development of spirituality in young children. It is my joy to come here each day and see the growth and development of the children, their families, and their teachers. Carol Cordeau Young: I have been a Supervising Teacher at Lipman School since 1995. I received my undergraduate degree in 1982 from Saint Bonaventure University, New York, and I hold a Master’s degree in Early Childhood Education Special Education from Saint Joseph College, West Hartford, Connecticut. I have taught in a variety of programs such as Science Museum of Connecticut Nursery School and the Martha O’Bryan Center in Nashville, TN. I present workshops and in-service training for local, state, and national early childhood professional groups. In addition to publishing articles on curriculum and parenting, my interests include reflective practice and science. Jan Kidder: I am a native Texan and received my undergraduate degree from the University of Dallas in 1976. After receiving my Master’s degree from Vanderbilt University in 1979, I adopted Tennessee as home and I have been teaching in Memphis ever since. I hold an American Montessori Society PrePrimary certificate from Memphis Montessori Institute, and have taught in Montessori schools, Memphis City Schools, and adjunct for Southwest Tennessee Community College. I have been the Supervising Teacher in the Montessori I classroom at Lipman School since 2000.

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Harmony Swenson: I am a native Memphian and my husband and I have a two-year-old daughter. I received my B.S. Ed. in early childhood education in 1999 here at the University of Memphis. After teaching with Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools I was pleased to come in 2001 as the kindergarten teacher and become a part of the unique and magical environment of Lipman School. I am currently pursuing my Master’s degree in Instruction and Curriculum Leadership. Jodie Friedman: I have been a Supervising Teacher at Lipman School since January, 2006, just after completing my student teaching assignment and finishing my M.A.T. at the University of Memphis (May, 2006). I received my B.S. in Business Administration from Boston University in May, 2003. It was then that I knew that I wanted to be a teacher of young children. I believe that children learn best while actively engaged in a comfortable learning environment; I work daily to achieve this in my classroom. Erin King: I have a long history with Lipman School. My journey began many when I attended Lipman as a kindergartner. I believe my early experiences in this caring and creative environment set the stage for my later academic and artistic pursuits. I returned to the University of Memphis as a young adult and earned a B.F.A. After pursuing different venues for a career, I decided to return to the University to earn a Master’s Degree in Early Childhood Education. While working on my M.A.T., I was fortunate to be a Graduate Assistant at Lipman School. In the 2007-08 school year I became Lipman’s first atelierista/ art teacher. I found that I could combine my art background and my knowledge of developmentally appropriate practice. I became the Preschool II Supervising Teacher the next year which I thoroughly enjoy. I continue to develop my own artistic yens and am an active artist in the Memphis community. Odette Patrikios: I was born in Zimbabwe, Africa, and attended business school and later immigrated to the United States with my husband and children. I joined the university several years ago and have been at Lipman School since 2003. Since becoming a staff member at the U of M I have received the university’s Outstanding Customer Service Award and was a nominee for the College of Education’s Dean’s Excellence Award for Support Staff. Thank you Lipman. We would also like to acknowledge Candice Burkett, Harley McGee, and Dulcenia Franklin Blake for their support and patience during the development and writing of this book. Sally Blake Flagler College, USA Denise Winsor University of Memphis, USA Lee Allen University of Memphis, USA

Section 1

Understanding the Digital Communication Generation Gap: Values, Beliefs, Social Cultural Systems that Influence Teaching Practice

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Chapter 1

The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education: Where the Child Things Are? Adults, Children, Digital Monsters and the Spaces in Between Andrew Neil Gibbons Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand

ABSTRACT This chapter explores the bridging of the communication-generation gap through an analysis of the child’s play with hi-tech toys. The analysis of the young child’s play with these toys employs narrative from the show Digimon in order to critique predominant themes in relation to learning and development. These themes highlight challenges to binary oppositions of adult-child, self-other, and artificial-real. In troubling these oppositions, the very idea of the gap becomes of interest in that in the gap are potential alternatives for adults who seek a critical understanding of the complex terrains in which they engage the young child.

Takuya is sprinting down the road, his cellular phone beeps, he looks at it...

He continues his dash down the middle of the street, past a small child kicking a football to his Dad. The Dad’s phone makes a strange noise as he runs by, and he looks at it...

Takuya: 5.40!?

Dad: Huh?

INTRODUCTION

Small child: Dad the ball! DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-059-0.ch001

Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

Takuya: Sorry. Dad: The phone? That noise? Takuya: I’ll get it. Dad: Kids these days Takuya runs into a T junction after the ball, puts his foot on the ball, and stops. He kicks the ball back up the street. A truck approaches; the driver is staring at his cellular phone, which is making the same strange noise. The driver looks back to the road to see Takuya. He slams the brakes on, the truck skids sideways towards Takuya.... Takuya: Oh perfect... aaarrrrggg... this... is my destiny? The scene above opens season four of Digimon – a Toei Animation animated television and movie series. Digimon, short for “Digital Monsters” is a media franchise encompassing anime, manga, toys, video games, trading card games and other media. The franchise’s eponymous creatures are monsters of various forms living in a “Digital World”, a parallel universe that originated from Earth’s various communication networks. Takuya is about to embark on a fantastic adventure in which he, a digitally destined child, will discover certain, familiar, life boundaries are no longer intact. He is rushing headlong into a new technological future. Throughout this chapter similar excerpts from Digimon provide themes for an exploration of gaps that appear between technological generations. Technological generations can be thought of as a more or less loosely defined classification of people, often chronologically constructed. Takuya, the character in the above excerpt, is a boy of about 12 years old, is a considered a member of a particular generation as a result of his age. Alternatively technological generations can be understood as the outcomes, or products,

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of technologies. Takuya is an active user of certain technologies and is hence a member of the Digimon generation; a child able to communicate with the digital world. Any gaps between generations might also be understood as constructed. Exploring toys in this chapter provides a context for exploring gaps not to suggest that such gaps are not real, but to examine the ways in which ‘we’ construct and respond to them. This chapter explores the terrain of the communication-generation gap from the context of the toy. Toys are considered one instance of technology generating human generations. The concepts of ‘adulthood’ and ‘childhood’ can be thought of as intimately connected to toys. However technological gaps are generated around more than the dichotomy of the adult-child. Notably, the gap between real and artificial is a technologically determined gap, as are gaps between rich and poor. From the seemingly most simple and natural stick, to the most complex multimedia pocket monster, toys reveal thoughts about the nature of child and adult, and of the gaps between them. This chapter begins with a brief family history of the toy, providing context for an analysis of the current ‘generation’ of toys, and in particular of the ways in which these toys are celebrated as powerful and educational or feared as unnatural and corrupting. This kind of analysis of technology has its perils. If a writer is seen to be promoting the use of new technologies for young children, he or she may attract criticism from advocates for a less cluttered and electronic child. Similarly, if he or she is problematising the child’s play with new media he or she is likely to attract the interests of advocates for hi-tech learning. From either position the research will be pulled apart for its scientific weaknesses and the values will be hauled across someone else’s normative coals. While this chapter cannot avoid these perils, it does attempt to look at the ways in which we respond to the phenomena as much as the phe-

The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

nomena itself. In other words, the focus is upon relationships. Relationships stress to the researcher not what is known as much as what is done with what is known. The generational digital gap is very much about relationships between children and technology and how each new generation comes to our schools with experiences and development influenced by available technology. In this sense, toys are a means with which we can understand lived experience. Our relationships to toys determine collective and individual horizons. For instance generational identity is a product of toys (think for instance of the children of the ‘playstation’ generation), and each collective group’s experiences and perceptions are different due to toys. In a sense experiences and accepted toys establish a common thread or identifier of one’s age. In this chapter the ways in which toys make sense of, and to, our relationships are explored with the hope that reader will be interested in other ways of thinking about and questioning toys, and about the broader themes of education and technology. A vast amount of information about human values, styles of thinking, and behavior patterns is gained from the extensive modeling in the symbolic environment of the mass media” (Cooper, 2005, pp. 270-271). The chapter is built around the Digimon narratives. These narratives reveal particular kinds of technological relationships, drawing out an idea that in the child’s connection with the toy there is a world that is in some way disconnected to the world of adults. After briefly exploring histories of toys and associated human thought, the chapter engages contemporary hi-tech instances of children’s technologies. Themes of learning and development are related to these technologies in order to analyse the ways in which an adult world makes sense of the child’s play. These themes reveal interesting gaps between adulthood and childhood that the chapter explores in order to consider some educational implications. Given the widespread interest in the gaps between adulthood and childhood, the notion that

children are in some way more confident navigators of a 21st century terrain is explored with the purpose of challenging the very ideas of child and adult, and hence the ‘problem’ of communicationgeneration gaps. This position is in essence one of questioning taken-for-granted boundaries and oppositions that have predominated in making sense of our lives. As such the purpose of the chapter is to explore the idea and experience of child and adult in order to consider how the ideas and experiences might be understood as a result of technology. We continually call upon ourselves to act in relation to these terms guided by observations that both making sense of the world (Luke, 1999) and making the right decisions in the world (Turkle, 1996) are seen to be increasingly complex cultural, social, and political tasks.

Objectives This chapter explores the nature of communication-generation gaps through analysis of the evolution of the digital toy. The purpose of the chapter is to present different ways of both understanding and analyzing gaps between child and adult through the symbol of the toy. Readers will be introduced to a range of historical and theoretical positions in order to promote a critical understanding of human-technology relationships and inform reflective pedagogies. The reader will: • • •

Develop a better understanding of the role of toys and generation identity Reflect on how digital toys influence children’s development and interactions Analyse the relationship between technology and generations

BACKGROUND: THE NEW WORLD OF DIGITAL REALITY Until recently, the surge in young children’s digitalmedia-based learning has drawn scant attention.

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The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

That situation is rapidly changing (Weigel, James, & Gardner, 2009). Digital toys have become big business in the economic community. In today’s digital-intensive world, young children represent a key target demographic for digital consumer electronic (CE) devices. Technology has become a part of what is called the edutainment industry. The edutainment segment of the toy industry is distinguished by innovative uses of existing technology typically found in mainstream consumer electronics. Over the past three years, there has been a sharp escalation in the development and marketing of edutainment toys aimed at toddlers, grade-school children, and more recently, at infants. (In-Stat, 2008) Recent research by In-Stat (2008) found the following:

unaware that the world is experiencing an environmental meltdown until it begins snowing. As they wonder about this impossible scenario the sky opens and six bright objects crash into the ground around them, then rise into the air in some kind of selection ritual. Sora: What... are these?

•

Koromon: Hey, you don’t need to be afraid of me, I’m your friend, I’m your friend, I’m your friend.

• •

One of the fastest growing segments in the overall toy industry is the edutainment market. The worldwide market for edutainment toys will reach $9 billion by 2012. The worldwide market for edutainment toys will grow to 146 million units by 2012

This increasing availability and interaction with the digital world further increases the generational gap in many ways. Bandura (2001) observed that “learning occurs either directly or unintentionally from models in one’s immediate environment. The digital environment our children experience in their formative years will clearly impact their world views. Exploring these relationships through analysis of the evolution of digital toys can help us better understand the new world of this generation.

Exploring the Historic Relationships Among Toys, Philosophy and Education It’s the summer holidays. Six children meet each other for the first time at a summer camp. They’re

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Matt: My guess is some sort of miniature remote digital apparatus. The devices seem purposeful; the children grab the devices and are transported into a digital dimension. As Tai wakes up he is frightened by a pink bouncing head with fangs that introduces itself: Tai: That’s the last time I eat camp food.

Tai: Just what are you? Have you had your rabies shots? Koromon: Everthing’s going to be alright now Tai, I’ve been waiting for you... Tai:... waiting for me? Koromon: My name’s Koromon, and we’re... partners! Tai: Koromon? That mean’s... talking head? Koromon: It means brave little warrior, and don’t forget it Tai. Tai: What did you mean you’ve been waiting for me, and how did you know my name?

While Koromon declares itself a brave warrior partner, it is also known to us as a digital pet, an evolution of the toy: a toy-pet animal hybridisation

The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

whose genealogy is complex. Koromon may not accept its designation as mere toy. Yet perhaps toys are anything but mere given their interest for psychological, media and educational studies. To trace Koromon’s family tree, this first section explores toy histories with a particular interest in the human subjectivities and relationships that are evident around the toy. One such subjectivity is the child itself. Childhood has appeared within certain contexts (see Aries, 1962), and disappeared in other contexts (see Postman, 1994). In this state of flux, the image of childhood, and of the child, reveals and conceals terrain between the adult and the child. This perpetual morphing of the terrain, or gaps, in between adult-child is evident in the technologies with which the child plays. In other words, toys provide one measure of the changing generational boundaries. Like childhood as a distinct object of study, toys provide historians with evidence of the ways in which the world has been, and is, perceived and experienced across time, and across cultural settings (Marsh 2002; Sutton-Smith, 1986, 1997). Archaeological evidence suggests toys including spinning (or twirler) tops, marbles, hoops, knucklebones, toy animals, dolls and rattles have been ‘around’ since early human civilisation, and across many cultures; made with a wide range of material, design, and intended use (Cross, 1997; McClary, 1997). Evidence of the toys of the past additionally appears to us in images that require considerable interpretation and intuition. For instance in Andrew McClary’s Toys With Nine Lives:A Social History of American Toys (1997) images from Antiquity, through the Middle Ages and on to Modernity present opportunity to make sense of the history of toys: It’s interesting to try and guess why the lady of classical Greece is whipping her top. Perhaps she was participating in some kind of sport, or

simply engaging in a nervous habit like smoking (McClary, 1997, p. 95-96). What appears to McClary in this archaeology of the toy is an acknowledgement of the status and purpose of objects that had playful, ceremonial, leisurely, palliative, and perhaps even work-related purposes. It is less apparent whether objects such as hoops and tops were regarded as educational in the sense that any activity might have been linked to learning. In part this is perhaps because, in McClary’s investigation, ancient toys are generally illustrated as the objects of players who appear to be adults – this of interest to the historian. Why is the adult playing with the child’s toy? Is this evidence that an ancient illustrator did not differentiate between child and adult in their work? Is this evidence that the object was not one of child’s play, or not solely an object in the domain of the child? Were there no such gaps between child and adult? Here history, as an adult practice, presents through observation an interpretation of technologies, ascribed as toys. The toys and their associated roles in social activity and experience are characterised as having significant influence, evident in their longevity as recognisable artefacts; and in many instances their influence in complex toy family histories. Toys then are the object of an adult world in the sense that meanings ascribed to toys are established for children within thoughts that span centuries. However the unobserved toys of childhood are obscured in the secret, untold, world of childhood (van Manen & Levering, 1996). They do not exist; at least, not as toys, and they do not contribute to the ancient construction of childhood. In the period of Antiquity, when philosophers were intrigued by form, universal qualities of beauty and truth, did a hoop, or a spinning top, give presence to an ideal? Did the toy have an essential role in establishing the nature and qualities of civilisation? The modernisation of the toy from the 17th century constructs the child as free to discover

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The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

the world through the innocence of play. Play is seen as a rational component of the child’s life path and worldly contributions. Play with toys is a stage in progression towards adulthood. So while we can only speculate about gaps between ancient parents and their children, in Modernity boundaries were staked such that gaps might be more visible. The context for the modern toy can be in part understood through again turning to philosophers and educationalists whose questions concerning children and childhood produced technological answers. In answering the question, “What is the purpose of education?” I relied at that time upon the following observations: Man lives in a world of objects, which influence him, and which he desires to influence; therefore he ought to know these objects in their nature, in their conditions, and in their relation with each other and with man kind (Froebel, 1886, p. 69). In Frobel’s text an essence of ‘man’ emerges that demands attention to the ways in which the child plays. Educational relationships are oriented around objects and exploration of them for the purpose of first truth of their nature, and then their capacity to make human life in some way better. An essence of being understood in this way draws together philosophers and educationalists including John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and of course Frobel himself. While each attends to different children in different times, the thread that connects them is the importance of the things the child plays with. …Locke said that a mother should teach the child human vaues, such as love and discipline, and needed skills, such as reading. These missions could be carried out with the help of toys. Earlier, toys had been dismissed as mere baubles or even as sinful, but now they became important teaching aids (McClary, 1997, p. 217).

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Essential to Locke was a freedom to learn promoted by both Plato and Aristotle. Freedom and play were connected around the object of the toy; however, it is also clear that this freedom is only a semblance, in that the purpose of the play is to become virtuous. The central difference to earlier lessons in virtue is perhaps most simply the belief that play is likely to be more effective than a whipping or recital of verse. In other words, play worked. Another quality of these toys is their apparent openness to the child’s desires. The toy and the child resonated, at least when compared to the toy and the adult, whose interests were turned towards the outside world of industry and growth. …mechanical figures, miniatures, and even ball games that had once edified or amused adults became the playthings of young people. Even the often violent and sensual rituals of carnival and mumming were tamed and then passed down to children. When adults abandoned these toys and games, their daily lives became more “serious.” Still, on special occasions they could escape the world of rationality, competition, and achievement by joining their children in a world of play that had been transformed into innocent delight. Wonder was saved from rationality and progress when it was given to children (Cross, 2004, pp. 26-27). Both Locke and Froebel develop the importance of an adult interest in child’s play – for wider social aspirations – and of the increasing rationalisation of children’s toys, a rationalisation that led to the economic, political and social role of the toy through its influence on the child’s informal and formal education. Regulation of play was both managing risk and opportunity (Cross, 2004) in the emerging social world of a city dwelling child. Opportunity was a central ideal that was applied to the manufacturing of the toy in an industrialising paradigm, while fears for the innocence of the child led to the importance

The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

of the toy in protecting the child from the adult world of the city. Again, gaps appear. In the late 19th and 20th centuries toys became things to manufacture rather than things to tinker with, to make more complex, more collectible, to provide rationalisations for, and also to provide some sense of order and governance such that children’s play was leading somewhere. Spinning tops and hoops began to appear static in relation to construction sets. Where, the adults began to ask, is the educational value in a hooped stick when compared to the construction set and its potential for complex play that would contribute to both the child’s imagination and their preparation for the real industrial world? Modernity and industrialisation brought new toys, new places to play, and it brought new attitudes towards the toy, attitudes that delimit emerging generational gaps. The desires of the child are measured against those of the adult world; children are seen to desire the latest toy. Adults who create and profit from these toys are often seen to be endangering the innocence of childhood in enjoining the child in the will to progress. Innovations in manufacturing, transport, and information and communication technologies provide the possibilities that progress of the toy might reach expanding audiences through, for instance, the television show, the advertisement, and in the late 20th century the Internet. The increasing visibility of the toy, and the toy industry, led to changing toy behaviours: ... the very fact that modern versions of tops and marbles have been re-designed to be used by small children with little skills has hurt their popularity. Once, they belonged to the world of sports and games, but today, they have been replaced by newer, and more exciting... items such as in-line skates, mountain bikes, and Frisbees (McClary, 1997, p. 114-115). Multiple identities of the child are distinguished in relation to the toy. Gaps appear within genera-

tions of childhood. However the generations, and their gaps, are not static. For example, in James May’s Toy Stories toys that epitomise a 20th century British play are recreated in ‘adult’ scales (May, 2010). Modern toys such as the construction set, or model train, are revived in the worlds of those adults who hold to the significance of toys from their childhood. These toys then do not provide a reliable measure of adulthood and childhood. Toys such as electric trains and construction sets and kitset models bridged generation gaps and, at least in the 50s, were targeted by manufacturers at the father son dyad (Cross, 2004). Many toys were complex to assemble and required significant time spent on them. They provided a bridge for adults back to a time of fantasy and fun that was, Cross (2004) argues, consigned to childhood with the rise of Science and reason. In a sense the Enlightenment, Science, Rationalism all conspired to tear a rent between child and adult – adulthood and childhood appeared as banks of a swiftly flowing river. Cross (2004) argues that the giving of toys to children was intended to keep children happy in their childhood, and hence purposefully not educational. Educational was seen to prepare children for the adult world. While in Cross’ analysis it appears that the toy established a connection between generations in order to protect a certain human essence, toys and play are also technologies for the control of childhood. That wonder and delight of the secret world of childhood is also a world of risk. In this sense an adult-child binary opposition is constructed around the unknown of childhood, in order to discover, monitor and organise the unknown child. Toys concomitantly provided adults with evidence that their children were developing as educated and economic beings. Think for instance of the ways in which children are observed to manage their collections of toys. Cross argues that the “the underlying assumption was that children had natural and autonomous desires that parents could not know or challenge” (Cross, 2004, p.

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15) but to which they had a moral responsibility to foster. Cross (2004, p. 20) notes: … battles between consumerism and education have been with us for generations. Novelty toymaker Louis Marx said in 1955, “I don’t go along with psychologists who want to sneak up on [children] and jam education into them through toys … [Only] spinster aunts and spinster uncles and hermetically sealed parents who wash their children 1,000 times a day give educational toys.” Marx was voicing the bias of a lifelong manufacturer of windup boxing Popeye figures and “Fort Apache” play sets. Yet fears of an unruly childhood meant that any rationalisation of how to promote the child’s security and future were becoming attractive to parents who were increasingly aware of their accountability to new social and political institutions whose concerns included the management of a generation of children that were out of the matrix of Modern control. The questions of generations, of childhood and adult, and of gaps between them are questions that concern people in different ways. The very nature of this questioning establishes a sense of who we are. In the analysis above a particular context is revealed, one in which knowledge and experience are thrust into logical relationships, positioned within the hula hoops of a Venn diagram. However these categories, classifications are unstable measurements and, in a world valorised as multicultural and postmodern, they are revealed as inadequate.

Robot Invasion of the Toy World Malomyotismon: And the worlds shall unite in darkness, ha ha ha ha, then they shall both be mine. In Digimon season two Malomyotismon’s project of world domination revolves around synthesising the worlds of digital and human beings. In the culmination of the season this grotesque figure

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of cyborg fantasy has enveloped planet earth in darkness, engendering despair in the human race. Here Digimon engages a human fear of technology in the form of a sentient robot. The robot is an enduring metaphor for science fiction writers that has played its part in establishing gaps between worlds, both earthbound gaps of humans and their tinkering with artificial life, and interstellar gaps of human and robot ‘races’. The robot also symbolises a 20th century invasion of the child’s play, observed by ever expanding modes of adulthood. In other words, it is not the robot but the professional that is observed milling around the child as she plays with her new toys. The robot may have initially entered the world of a child’s play as a fun toy, at least for those children whose economic contexts allowed for such play. However the technological essence of the robot, when associated with the psychological and cybernetic sciences, revealed a particular mission for the robot as a pre-programmed and serious educational toy. There are a number of interesting sources for this programming, particularly within the sphere of cybernetics. Alan Turing, for instance, articulated artificial intelligence in terms of developing infant cognition, connecting “the question of what makes people think machines can think... [with] a question about what makes us think other people can think” (Croissant, 1998, p. 292). An interest in what makes people think, and in the child’s play with her toys, provided Jean Piaget’s genetic epistemology with a focus in his search for a stable structure and regulation of systems (Gibbons, 2007). Piaget provided many adults, and particularly those interested in science and technology, with evidence that children were naturally inclined to be scientific and technological (Turkle, 1998). One of Piaget’s young colleagues, Seymour Papert, advocated for new educational computational technologies, in reinforcing the constructivist epistemology around the concept of the ‘knowledge machine’ (Papert, 1993). This

The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

machine provided for Papert the possibility that education might become a practice and experience responsive to progress. Of particular interest was the development of new generations of electronic toys expected to transform a child’s thinking in some way. Briefly, Papert regarded a bridge built between building blocks, construction sets, and the computer chip as encouraging a child’s learning, and in particular learning of mathematics, that might be more concrete and personal than the pedagogical methods of the time. Children using computers experience a synthesis between aesthetics and science in a manner more meaningful than is possible in tradition educational, classroom, environments (Papert, 1991a). Building and playing with castles of sand, families of dolls, houses of Lego, and collections of cards provides images of activities which are well rooted in contemporary cultures and which plausibly enter into learning processes that go beyond specific narrow skills. I do not believe that anyone fully understands what gives these activities their quality of “learning-richness.” But this does not prevent one from taking them as models in benefiting from the presence of new technologies to expand the scope of activities with that quality (Papert, 1991b, p 6). The ‘upgrading’ of dolls, building block, card games, through the incorporation of computer technologies altered the nature of the toy in some complex and often uneasy ways, uneasy at least for adults who were not willing to accept the hybridisation of their traditions. Children playing with these technologies are seen to be engaged in complex theory construction. Papert, and others, regard new computer technologies as engendering a valued kind of learning, termed bricolage. Being a bricoleur, the child’s learning is regarded as having the quality of knowledge-tinkering. Within this context the activity of making sense of and acting out one’s

play is not a nice whole and self-contained experience (see for instance Gibbons, 2007). The bricoleur may not be a new phenomenon for the child, but it is a new phenomenon for explaining the child’s behaviour in educational contexts, and thereafter for designing the curricula in such ways as to be bricoleurian. In part the intention here is to reach out, across a perceived generational gap, to the child in order to solve the problem of education’s lack of appeal to younger generations. Gee (2005, p. 5) reflects that “we all know from school, young people are not always eager to do difficult things.” Yet that eagerness seems to appear when the difficult thing is a computer game. Gee (2005, p. 5) asks: “How do good game designers manage to get new players to learn their long, complex, and difficult games and not only learn them but pay to do so?” I believe it is something about how games are designed to trigger learning that makes them so deeply motivating … the designers of many good games have hit on profoundly good methods of getting people to learn and to enjoy learning (Gee, 2005, p. 5). Yet a turn to toys and games generally elicits scepticism for those who are yet to throw out their pedagogical babies with their educational bath water. Hence in pedagogical circles it is important to highlight that gaming “learning methods are similar in many respects to cutting-edge principles being discovered in research on human learning” (Gee, 2005, p. 5). For some, the idea that the computer game is a carrier of meaningful learning might be less of interest than their viral qualities; computer games occupy central concerns in relation to child consumption of violence, antisocial tendencies, obesity through inactivity, and a general subservience to the market forces of high technology. The advocates for learning with new technologies are quick to adapt and respond to concerns as they are given voice. Amidst concerns, in the early

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The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

80s, that computers were too artificial, pedagogies were promoted that focused on a child’s natural inclination to explore the world. New technologies then are coupled to the educational toy world in accepting that learning through play is an essential component of the child’s education particularly in relation to the domains of mathematics, science and technology. Children playing with the right toys are being scientists and mathematicians, developing concepts and behaviours that reveal them to be more than a becoming scientist; they are being scientists (Lind, 2005). Put simply, where an educational gap is proclaimed, the technology is reprogrammed to bridge the gap. A key inference here is that the young children will accept a computer as a natural part of the environment in a way that adults either will not, or cannot. For example, Gebhardt-Seele (1985, p. 5) observed “children approach the miracle computer with the same unprejudiced sense of wonder as a germinating pea”. Despite the admission that the pea’s germination is as complex, if not more, as the computer’s digital systems, advocacy turned to the essential role of the computer in education, and not that of the pea. We as educators do not have the choice of whether or not to establish the computer as part of the child’s environment. All we can do is decide on the consequences that the fact of computers, as part of the child’s environment, will have in our prepared environment in the school and the home (Gebhardt-Seele, 1985, p. 7). The poor old pea that we left under the child’s mattress (to prove to ourselves that she is real) has been genetically modified into a virtual pea, just as the animal has transformed in the virtual pet. The virtual pet, of which a Digimon toy is one instance, is an object of pedagogical interest on account of its capacity to encourage a range of pro-social behaviours. In part this may reveal that pets have been treated like educational toys.

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Animals have long been an important part of children’s lives, offering comfort and companionship, and promoting the development of moral reciprocity and responsibility. Yet in recent years there has a movement to create technological substitutes for pets, such as the Tamagotchi, i-Cybie, Tekno, and Poo-Chi (Kahn, Friedman, Perez-Granados, & Freier, 2004, p. 1449) Psychological interest in “children’s reasoning about and behavioural interactions with one of the most advanced robotic pets” (Kahn, Friedman, Perez-Granados, & Freier, 2004, p. 1449) has provided the adult world with evidence that children are thinking differently about life. In a sense “robotic pets, as representative of an emerging technological genre in HCI, may be (a) blurring foundational ontological categories, and (b) impacting children’s social and moral development” (Kahn, Friedman, Perez-Granados, & Freier, 2004, p. 1449). Kahn, Friedman, Perez-Granados, and Freier (2004), researching robotic pets, believe that a new generation of technology is evident in the child’s robotic toys in that relative to previous generations the toy exhibits particular autonomy, adaptation, and personification in a moving, interacting toy. One of their concerns is that such a toy shifts the boundaries of how we can talk about technology, and hence new language is required. …it may not be the best approach to keep asking people if this emerging technological genre is, for example, “alive” or “not alive” if from the person’s experience of the subject-object interaction, the object is alive in some respects and not alive in other respects, and is experienced not simply as a combination of such qualities… but as a novel entity (Kahn, Friedman, Perez-Granados, & Freier, 2004, p. 1450). The expectation here is that the adult world of rationalising human behaviour may need to respond to the child’s world of rationalising life

The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

(Kahn, Friedman, Perez-Granados, & Freier, 2004). In other words, new social and cultural phenomena require new psychological branches and new academic questions. First, what does it mean to morally care about an entity that (as the majority of the children recognized) is not alive? In this sense, a person can “care” very deeply about a car they have owned for decades, and cry when it is finally towed to the junkyard; but that would seem to us a derivative form of caring, supported only by the person’s projection of animacy and personality onto the artifact, concepts which may first have to be developed in the company of sentient others (Kahn, Friedman, Perez-Granados, & Freier, 2004, p. 1452). The digital pet, or a digital doll, is perceived to have an interactive and developmental capacity that engenders the toy as more complex than previous toys. For instance, the child can purchase new data to add to the features of the toy. However, while there is some attention to the complexity of the artefact, there is some debate about this, and the debate generally orients around the complexity of the child’s interactions. In other words, if the child is seen to be merely responding to directions of a toy, the child is regarded as a passive player, whereas if the child is seen to be developing new ways of thinking about the world then the toy is encouraging valued complex play. This complexity debate orients around the aspirations of the adult world in relation to the nature and purpose of education. Is there ‘real’ or ‘deep’ learning going on when a child is engaged with a toy? A central connection for Papert’s theory of learning is that real and deep are related to the ideas of fun and happiness through, in particular, the expectation that his toys encourage fantasy play, a kind of play not unfamiliar to the likes of Lewis Carroll or A.A. Milne, both of whom regarded the child’s toy as a gateway to deep learning, however more on that later.

In the age of the digital monster, Koromon is evidence of the will to either make sense of, or make a problem of, new technologies and their ‘real-life’ pedagogical manifestations in the play of the child. This play is evident in the fantasy worlds that are both presented to the child as narratives to mediate/consume, and in addition present to the child certain narratives about being a child, whether that child be Christopher Robins, or Takato.

Playing with the Boundaries of the Real An urban playground, out of sight in the belly of a dinosaur statue, Takato and Kazu are hunched over a gaming board, holding card reading digivices, selecting creatures from their playing cards strewn across the ground, competing in card battles. In this scene, beginning season three of Digimon, the show becomes real within the show. Takato and Kazu have been watching and playing Digimon seasons one and two. They represent real children. As children who really play the Digimon game, they have digivices, character cards and a game board. However Takato is soon to find out that the Digimon are real, and that to defeat their enemies they have to become one with their digitally destined friend. For Takato the gaps between real and artificial have become indistinct. Here the show popularizes what Papert (1993) argued as important connections between concrete and abstract life experiences. He regarded the knowledge machine as a bridge between concrete (real) and abstract (artificial). In his theory of constructionism the concrete nature of an object must involve the “person who constructs the object” (Wilensky, 1991, p. 197) and hence constructionism looks not at the object’s concrete nature but the “person’s construction of the object, at the relationship between the person and the object” (Wilensky, 1991, p. 198).

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The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

The object was made concrete in the soft and hard machinery of Logo and the interconnection between Logo and the building blocks of LEGO, hence connecting the world of microchip networks to that of the mass produced building block. Hi-tech toys such as LEGO/Logo products are articulated as educational toys in which the child can embody herself (Papert, 1991a), connecting with and instructing the robotic creation (Resnick & Ocko, 1991) in much the same way as Tai and Koromon or, as seen below, Takato and Guilmon. In altering herself she alters reality: One characteristic of children’s play is the ability to experiment with and transform reality. Through this process, children can assume control over given situations and select the important issues they want to deal with (Kafai & Harel, 1991, p. 136). However, if this is a characteristic of play, is the computer a necessity? Might a stick or a teddy bear provide a medium for reality transformation? Perhaps this very question led to an interest in the technology of the child’s brain as the fantasy-producing medium. Yet in order to understand the brain, computational technologies re-emerge. Turkle (1996, p. 25), for instance, suggests “the development of genetics as a computational biology [reflects] the extent to which we assume ourselves to be like machines whose inner workings we can understand.” The micro-isation of the computer made it possible for toys to become more ‘human’ and more child-friendly. While a computer was the size of a small room, or a desktop, it was fairly safe from being the object of a child’s affections. When it was inserted into the body of an action figure, teddy bear, and so on, the computer chip synthesized with the toy and assimilated its qualities as efficiently as an intergalactic Borg cube. In a new mode of discovery, Turkle (1996, p. 10) argues the child playing with a robot is ‘led’ to “speculate about whether computers are smart and what it is to be alive.” Children are engaged, 12

in this sense, in the kind of philosophical inquiry that most adults are not, with the exception of philosophers and science fiction writers. The movement towards explaining how a computer thinks, as children are observed to do (Turkle, 1996), and of designing computers that are more human, has led to problematising notions of thought and of the natural/artificial dichotomy. Children have developed a human-like relationship; interpreting their relationships with technology in terms supposedly reserved as criteria for human relations (Turkle, 1996). Turkle (1996, 1998, & 2005) has gathered extensive data on the ways in which children engage with computer technologies. She observed that these technologies make psychological sense to children. More than this, the ‘opaque’ quality of such technologies encourages children to, Turkle (1996) argues, actively interpret the nature of the technologies they use. Her observations of explanations of the nature of new technologies show that the children often explain the operation of the technology in terms of psychological presence – thinking, knowing, remembering. According computers a psychological life once reserved for people led to some important changes in how children thought about the boundaries between people, machines, and animals (Turkle, 1996, p. 81). Where a plastic doll might have physical presence, a robotic baby doll has psychological presence, in that the child’s explanation of the doll draws upon a discourse of emotion and thought. “For today’s children, the boundary between people and machines is intact. But what they see across the boundary has changed dramatically” (Turkle, 1996, p. 83). What they saw, past tense, was movement as evidence of life, although this did not apparently raise a question regarding whether an immobile human is alive. What children have seen, since the late 70s, is thought. Perhaps ironically Turkle (2005, p. 320) notes:

The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

Our culture will develop ways of thinking about the computer that, in a sense, require no thought. As these reach the ears and minds of children, they may change the child’s discourse about these objects. One such example of thought-less engagement with new technologies may be the simulated life game. Programmers developed simulated life games during the 80s in which the player could set in motion a life or lives that had a seeming disconnect with the player (Turkle, 1998) but that necessarily draw upon the programmer’s assumptions about life and evolution. Of interest to Turkle is however not the programme’s demarking of what counts as real life, but the child’s developing understanding as a result of engagement with artificial life. The ‘cyborg child’ (Turkle, 1998) does not distinguish between “online and offline, or virtual and real; the digital is so much intertwined into their lives and psyche that the one is entirely enmeshed with the other” (Thomas, 2006, p. 126). Children’s lived experiences in their virtual worlds are regarded as real experiences. Children exploring the world with their new digital devices are building bridges between the once distinct human and artificial world. Through early play experiences with the range of toys, whether digital or not, the child plays with the symbols, themes and values associating ‘real’ products with their fictional source, and with the other multimedia manifestations that offer children opportunity to engage with the questions of the nature of real, artificial, conscious, alive, dead, adult, and child. The child engaged in play with the gaps that make sense to the adult world is in a particular space that is of interest to the adult world in terms of the nature of children’s developing identities. Today’s adults grew up in a culture that equated the idea of a unitary self with psychological health and in a scientific culture that taught that when a discipline achieves maturity, it has a unifying

theory. When adults find themselves cycling through varying perspectives on themselves... they usually become uncomfortable... But such alternations may strike the generation of cyborg children who are growing up today as “just the way things are” (Turkle, 1998, p. 327). Turkle has observed that the child in some way is predetermined to be open to the new technology in a way that differentiates child from adult. Citing Walt Whitman she notes: “A child went forth every day. And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became” (1998, p. 328) and wonders whether, in the terrain of the Internet and computer game, and in the hi-tech playroom, the child’s experiences of life and self are substantively different. For Turkle (1996, p. 22) an interest in “what we are becoming if the first objects we look upon each day are the simulations into which we deploy our virtual selves” suggests an interest in engaging with a self that is emerging from the gaps present around humanity. Gee similarly notes that “when a person is manipulating a robot at a distance or watering a garden via a webcam on the Internet - [it] causes humans to feel as if their bodies and minds have stretched into a new space” (2005, p. 8). The condition for Turkle that engenders the experience as different for the user is their nature as child, in that such new spaces are not distinct from ‘old’ spaces and hence the child is not disturbed by a multiplicity of selves – a problem for adults who are worried about the impact of a loss of self in the cyber world and hence their disconnect with real life (Thomas, 2006). The instability sensed here has taken the discursive form of the cyborg and the process of “cyborgification” (Croissant, 1998, p. 285). Gaps appear in the fixed identities of childhoods and adulthoods. Parents peer into unfamiliar worlds, whether they be new worlds of leisure, or of employment (Croissant, 1998), or of ‘their’ children. The child is an alien nation. That ‘they’, the children, play with life in their play with the digital world suggests that there is some alliance,

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The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

or perhaps even some kind of symbiosis: the child becomes the cybernetic creature. Yet for children, and for commentators who align themselves with a fluid and dynamic self, there is no problem, just a wonder at what the fuss is all about: “For children who are immersed in media from their earliest memories, life on the screen is an everyday, natural practice; they know no other way of being” (Thomas, 2006, p. 128). The technology then becomes a new measure of a child’s potential, free from static, fixed, linear identities and life pathways (Dreyfus & Spinosa, 2002). It would be naive to suggest that previous lives were singular. But singularity was, within some horizons, that which was what would be looked for in the self. Hence the ‘reformation’ of childhood around us is as much about the way in which childhood has emerged as an ontological challenge to adults. In particular, transformations of the child and adult self provide empirical evidence of the instability of these selves and hence of the educational and technological realities that have been sewn into their shadows. Children, as navigators of the cyber world, able to engage multiple spaces of on- and off- the line, flowing between relations and behaviours, are capable and critical beings. Children of Digimon are in this sense engaged in critical pedagogy. The child’s new toys are enticing not just for technological ‘advance’ in education and the supposed benefits these advances bring for children, but also for those interested in the capacity of new electronic technologies to shake up educational power and knowledge relationships. The toy’s critical pedagogical qualities encourage “investigating institutional and societal practice with a view to resisting the imposition of dominant social norms and structures” (Keesing-Styles, 2002, p. 109). … critical pedagogy … has the task of engaging students and teachers in transformative social practices which, by their very nature, challenge

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unequal and antidemocratic structures and processes, and seek to establish more egalitarian and “humanizing” alternatives in their place (Lankshear, Peters & Knobel, 1996, p. 151). A kind of cyber or virtual critical pedagogy ‘opens’ up the space between child and adult as a terrain in which traditions of rationalism and positivism might be disrupted. More than this, the child and adult subjects are replaced by a critical pedagogue, a self that has transformed with and through technology, and is evidence of the newness of technological relationships, but also of the limitations of our ability to express these relationships. In some ways grotesque figures appear to us, such as the techno-tot (Davis-Floyd & Dumit, 1998) – a hybrid animated futuristic cyborg child. For this future child meaning and structure are constantly negotiated; the authority of interpretation and meaning is dispersed (Lankshear, Peters & Knobel, 1996) in the gap. This dispersal of self is no surprise given the attack on knowledge as stable, predictable, definable, meaningful, and knowable. The critical pedagogue no longer wishes to know what to teach, or be taught, and neither does she know the teacher or student, adult or child. New life-metaphors emerge in the digital matrix and challenge traditional assumptions about life and learning, and reflect a flux capacity inherent in, for instance, the Internet, a capacity structurally conducive to critical and decentralised thinking (Lankshear et al 1996; Luke & Luke 2001). The new life-metaphor, the cyborg, is a negotiated subject – networked, rhizomatic, narrative, fluid and dynamic (Gough, 2004). However this new identity is not simply a fun project, it is a necessary response to a similarly unstable world. Luke (1999, p. 623), for instance, argues that the pervasiveness of media symbols and experiences in a young child’s life necessitates the development of skills to disseminate information – to develop media literacy, which “aims to make students (a) critical and selective viewers and consumers

The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

of popular culture; (b) able to reflect critically on media messages, their own selections, and pleasures form media and texts; and (c) able to use those critical skills in the production of their own multimedia or audiovisual texts.”

The Evolution of the Child-Machine Takato (to Guilmon):... we’re together, we can do anything. Beelzemon: We’re not going to do this again are we? Takato: I wish I could fight him with you Guilmon, Beelzemon wouldn’t stand a chance against the two of us together. Guilmon: I’m sure there’s a way Takato, maybe you just have to wish for it really hard, it worked when you needed the blue card. Takato: Alright then... I really want to fight with Guilmon... Lights stream around Takato and Guilmon, a DNA pattern envelops them. The bodies of Takato and Guilmon merge together... Guilmon: Guilmon biomerge to........ Gallantmon. Turkle (1996, p. 21) claims that as “human beings become increasingly intertwined with the technology and with each other via the technology, old distinctions between what is specifically human and specifically technological become more complex.” This complexity is evident in the digivolution of child and digimon into a hybrid digidestined. The digivolved being has augmented power, heightened awareness and enhanced empathy. This cybernetic synthesis of child and machine has strong evolutionary tones (Croissant, 1998), however for some the question is not when humans will be synthesised with

machines but rather what makes us think we are not (Ellul, 1964). The child’s cyborgness is evident in the “widening gap between the children who embody the ideals of flexibility and robust motor programming and are capable of moving gracefully, who are effective information managers in the cognitive domain, who will be the adults who manage and move with and for transnational capital flows, and those for whom such movement is a struggle, a luxury, or a dream” (Croissant, 1998, p. 292). The possibility that the child is a compatible evolutionary mate with a digital monster reflects the design of each in the mould of the other. In other words, the child is explained as the machine that is designed with the child in mind. The evolutionary theme in Digimon introduces children to a range of cybernetic and AI issues. In particular from one Digimon series to the next the link between the child and the digimon is seemingly more complex. As fantastic as this biomerge might seem, the plot emphasises that both the child and the machine might benefit from their increasing complex real world relationships. This evolution to human-machine links back to the multiplicity of selves explored above, in which the child is not simply multiple, because it is not simply human (Croissant, 1998). However the thought that technology interwoven with the child leads to a new level of evolution raises some concerns for the connections between adult and child. A ‘narrative of evolution’ pushes further apart the generations of child and adult (Croissant, 1998). The incessant messages regarding rearing better children through technologies of ergonomic childhood establishes the child’s machination as known only to the technicist. Adults no longer assume they understand children. And Rousseau, lamenting the precocious child’s opulent technological fetishism, is not a happy philosopher. In Digimon, the artificially-intelligent digimon, were created by adult human programmers who were unaware their creations existed autonomously in the digital dimension. This secret digiworld is populated by evolving digital characters 15

The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

that collaborate with children to save the world. The digimon and the digidestined children build increasingly complex relationships in which the child “owns and controls, mediates and remediates the new modes of representation... in homes and classrooms” (Luke & Luke, 2001, p. 104). …the future has already arrived, given that there now exists an entire generation of young people who do not know any other way of being than living with technology and the Internet. For children, there exists a seamlessness of life in, out and around technological spaces (Thomas, 2006, p. 126). The irony here is that product of adult invention authors the distancing of adult from child. The gap between child and adult appears around the toy and the machine, and in particular around the different relationships seen to be had with the machine. While “children were obliged to work, helping parents with baby siblings and doing the housework that mothers had no time for” (Cross, 1997, p. 13) the gaps between child and adult were quite different to those when in the 90s the child’s time was not taken with chores, but with engaging with technologies that children would then teach adults about (Turkle, 1996). Here “adults have become outsiders to kids’ insider know-how, their exclusive community anti-languages, symbol systems, and frames of reference” (Luke & Luke, 2001, p. 103). An interesting rhetorical inversion has been put in place. With the emergence of new youth competence and practice, the key educational question has shifted from incompetence, malpractice and disengagement with communications technologies viewed as a sign of educational deficit, to its photo negative: technological competence, practice and engagement as a sign of deficit (Luke & Luke, 2001, p. 103).

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Parents are in a position where they must buy and maintain and update these technologies because of their own sense of obligation to the rhetoric of progress. It is unsettling perhaps to think of certain phenomena turned on their head, the ideas that children might be more experienced than adults, that artificial technologies can elicit emotional and meaningful relationships, that virtual social networks can satisfy needs for intimacy and interconnectedness, or the idea that toys and games might be more educationally educational than textbooks and teacher instruction. These unsettlements are only unsettling if we need the world to be the right way up and the gaps to be in the right place. The idea that there is a divide between child and adult does not fit with the paradigm of seamlessness, whether thought of educationally (be educatable throughout life) or technologically (be able to apply certain technological behaviours to all spheres of life). In a seamless world gaps should not be appearing. However the secret lives of children continue to be important to both children and adults (Cross, 2004; van Manen & Levering, 1996). They are important to adults because some spheres of the adult world are not considered appropriate for children. It is better for a child to be engaged in fantasy play, it follows, than in consumer activity. So when fantasy play and economic behaviour synthesise further problems occur in delimiting the gaps between the child and the adult. In other words, children are now occupying a consumer status considered appropriate only to adults in certain communities (Cross, 1997). Shows like Digimon continue to push these boundaries. The show’s connections of television, toy, card game, personal computer, and the Internet present to the child a consumable multiple media package. Hence the genealogy for a 21st century multi-media corporate toy paradigm is evident in Digimon. Meanwhile adults who have a passion for the in-between are marginal adults; adults who are still children. Think for instance of the many TV

The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

characters who exist in this in-between terrain: the Comic Store guy in The Simpsons, the geeky geniuses in The Big Bang Theory, and the inept dad from Modern Family. Adults who attempt to be children resist “giving up their toys” (Cross, 2004, p. 160); such resistances go on in the gap between adult and child. In order to become an adult one must give up the capacity to navigate the gap between adult and child. Reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia chronicles, it appears that entering adulthood disables the capacity to participate in alternate dimensions. Cross (2004) identifies a romantic and traditional image of the child as being, and requiring, a simple world, and that the complexity of the adult world should be kept at bay. However, it is now adult worlds that seem simple as they peer into what appears to be the complex world of children in order to make some sense of it. From opposite sides of the gap, the other appears alien (Luke & Luke, 2001). However the occupation of bridge building may not be necessary. In a techno paradigm some adults see a critical response to the simplicity and destructiveness of modernity, an “emergence of different life pathways, different forms of identity and skills” (Luke & Luke, 2001, p. 95). Is such life experience accessible and/or understandable to an old world order? Can the adult resist perpetuation of a fear of youth: The spectre of unruly, uncivil youth has a long and undistinguished history, one that enables us to anticipate the uses and abuses of ‘crisis’ that accompany changes in communications media (Luke & Luke, 2001, p. 99). Fear of the generation gap is amusing, in that the gap is a construction. Generating generations fits well with technologies of the social sciences through which social groups are constructed and used as labels to govern individuals and groups, whether that governing be in the form of state surveillance, or economic exploitation. In terms

of the former, generation X was a suggestion that computer kids were alienated generation, while in the latter, the MTV generation were victims of popular culture (Luke & Luke, 2001). This is not to suggest that there is nothing new to the digikid, but to suggest that the kind of evolutionary addiction that we have, to think that the kids of cyberspace are more complex, is a product not of their complexity but of our forgetfulness, a forgetfulness which established itself in the toys of years gone. For instance, if we believe that we had more control over children watching television, or playing monopoly than we do with the child on the Internet, then we forget a time of initial fear. Surveilling and securing the parameters of childhood and adolescence is an ongoing historical battle. Each generational wave of adult anxieties and protest about the next generation’s declining moral, cultural, or literacy ‘standards’is based on adult experience and romanticized reminiscences of their own youth and schooling in a previous and often mythologicized golden age (Luke & Luke, 2001, p. 105). Perhaps the most optimistic response to this apparent syndrome (one which might in itself define adulthood) is to resist the communicationtechnology gap as evidence of a Modern narrative crisis. Jean-Francois Lyotard (1999) observed in certain new configurations of information the conditions of postmodernity. One aspect of his analysis was the development of a crisis in predominating narratives. These narratives secure margins between adults and children – in the safety of knowing that adults are defined by their knowing, whereas children are defined by their ignorance. As the information age has taken hold of our consciousness, we can no longer have such security. This is not to suggest that things were ever more secure, but that they were known by some as more secure, while others were seen to be judged by their failure to know. Inspired

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by Nietzsche, Lyotard and others have ventured that this security was merely imagined, no less important in its imaginariness, but imagined all the same. Children of the information age are then not children as adults know them, and adults by extensions cannot be adults in a familiar oppositional relationship. However, while in postmodernity new organisations of life pathways might exist (Luke & Luke, 2001), this should not be read to mean that old life pathways were stable, but rather that they were interpreted as stable within certain traditions. When considering the history of the toy the role of adults in narrating the story evidences these traditions and the binaries that helped make them meaningful. Education and play, artificial and real, natural and technological, adult and child: all productive binaries that have helped to make sense of the world, yet at the same time they have served to limit this making sense, and to marginalise some senses.

IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE TRENDS Takato is late for school, he stands in the empty corridor outside his class and sighs... Mrs Sagi: I heard that, you know the rules, if you show up late, you’ll have to wait. Takato: Who me? (the class laughs)... I’m sorry I’m late Mrs Sagi. Takato grabs some paper and a pencil and sits down in the corridor. Sometime later he is allowed in class. Mrs Sagi: Now I want you all to pay close attention, this is going to be on your test.

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Takato begins to draw a digimon character, talking to himself... Takato: Yeah that works, red is definitely a power color. I’ll give him the strongest attack ever; noone will ever expect that, especially from a rookie. I’m going to make him even better than Agumon. I’ll call it Pyrosphere. Mrs Sagi: Are you designing a Halloween costume? Takato:Huh? No, it’s a digimon, don’t you know anything? Mrs Sagi: Well Takato, despite your apology you certainly don’t seem very sorry about being late do you. Takato: Ahhh, yes, I mean no, ma’am, actually I do mean yes, I mean I’m sorry, I’m really sorry (the children laugh again). The bell goes and Takato is left in the class alone while the other children play outside, Takato is still designing and naming the digimon that will later become Guilmon. In the Digimon show school is generally (not exclusively) a place where otherwise brilliant and capable children dwell in a confused and unhappy state. Learning at school cannot compete with its digital world variant. Luke and Luke (2001) highlight this embarrassing educational phenomenon: schools are ill-prepared for an ICT-rich curriculum in terms of resources, teacher knowledge, pedagogy, and arguably in the eyes of the student. Even more embarrassing for adults is the evidence that children don’t seem to need schools in order to succeed technologically. Visions of a future in which children download their education in their own time are not too distant as visions. Freed from the adult constraints of school, children of the Digimon era see communication

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and generation differently. For these children the communication and generation gaps refers to a kind of epoch, in or part of a more-or-less particular time, or in a particular context, that is familiar, yet alien. The technological complexity of the child’s cyber learning world troubles the meaning of being a learner and/or a teacher. Should the child be freed from school? The concern for some commentators is the possibility that school is necessary to ensure that a critical attitude towards particular, generally new, technologies is promoted. A critical attitude is a ‘healthy’ attitude (Falbel, 1991) rather than a negative one. In other words, it is not healthy to dismiss new technologies simply because they appear to disturb certain generational truths. One critical position, discussed in the previous section, is to think differently about adulthood and childhood. Taking this idea further, critique might productively engage with the very gap that artificially separates the child from the adult. To think differently about the gap is to consider that generations do not generate; it is the gap that generates. A gap draws together and pushes apart. In other words, where the gap is drawn, we find difference. The gap reveals ways of thinking and being in the sense that technological phenomena and technology in general, are related to human conditions and purposes. For instance, a will to exploit the world through technology is one such condition and purpose (Heidegger, 1977). A third critical position involves the connection of culture to the study of new technological life worlds. For instance, observing variances in the way children perceive aliveness locates the child and the observer in a cultural and historical context. Cultures define and respond to technology differently. One difference is the valorisation of technological success, and the great lengths individuals will go to in order to be identified and immortalised in relation to technological innovation. This tendency exhibits itself in societal terms through the regard that nations have for their own

technological development as compared to that of other nations. Is it possible that some cultures do not a) regard invention as the mother of all good, and b) the result of individual enterprise? Fleer (1999) traces recent critique of Eurocentric thinking about technology and progress such that international power relations are explained and legitimated in narrow technological terms. As educators we need to foster respect for the multiple ways people have developed solutions to problems. The focus must be on cultural similarities and shared needs. As educators we must move away from using examples from the poor majority … to the over consumption of the rich minority (Fleer, 1999, p, 11). The potential of this current analysis is to destabilise certain predominant ways of thinking about education, technology, humanity so as to be open to, and welcoming of, other constructions. In this sense technology in a postmodern world opens up a valuing of difference. Adults, teachers in particular, might experience some sense of freeing if they dive into the gap in which there is no adult or child. Freeing us from having a total fixed identity so that we may experience ourselves as multiple identities disclosing multiple worlds is what Heidegger calls technology’s saving power (Dreyfus & Spinosa 2002, p. 189). A prediction for the future then (one that might prepare us for the arrival of the alien other): the ways in which children perceive the communication-generation gaps around them will in some way be determined by the way in which childhood continues to exist as a metaphor for a generation. Will that generation assist the robot in a quest to become real? Or would Tai, or Takato, or Takuya say to the Koromons and Guilmons, the Pinocchios of the future: ‘the boundaries between real

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and artificial are themselves artificial, you are no more or less a real boy than I’ (Ghiraldelli, 2002).

CONCLUSION Fifty years ago, when Piaget was formulating his theories, a child’s world was full of things that could be understood in simply, mechanical ways (Turkle, 1998, p. 317). To suggest that in previous generations the world was ‘more simple’ is particularly narrow in scope and context. This chapter has explored the complexity of the toy, and of the toys contemporary troubling of adulthood and adulthood and has regarded the latest hi-tech shows as productive in supporting such exploration of a set of binary oppositions. However, while the text above has played around with the 21st century narratives of Digimon, the endgame is one of questioning not just adulthood and childhood, but also simplicity and complexity. The predominant themes could have been equally as evocative supported by A.A. Milne (2007, pp. 104-105): Christopher Robin came down from the Forest to the bridge, feeling all sunny and careless, and just as if twice nineteen didn’t matter a bit, as it didn’t on such a happy afternoon, and he thought that if he stood on the bottom rail of the bridge, and leant over, and watched the river slipping slowly beneath him, then he would suddenly know everything that there was to be known, and he would be able to tell Pooh, who wasn’t quite sure about some of it. But when he got to the bridge and saw all the animals there, then he knew that it wasn’t that kind of afternoon, but the other kind, when you wanted to do something. ‘It’s like this, Christopher Robin,’ began Rabbit. ‘Tigger – ’

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In Digimon the partners in the game should not be regarded as complex on the basis that we conveniently interpret Pooh, Christopher Robins and the game of Poohsticks as engaged in simplistic relationships. This would be a reinterpretation on the basis that technology and the child’s world has somehow got more complex. But the criterion that determines one thing as more complex than another has been predetermined. The winner might always be the digital monster if measured in a digital paradigm. Winnie the Pooh won’t fight at any rate, as he is far more interested in a contemplative existence. But wait, in Winnie’s contemplation, the unitary wholeness of the self is revealed as myth. So too then is the cyborg alternation a myth, and Winnie the Pooh is just as complex a player as Koromon.

Reflecting on Bridging the Communication-Generation Gap Through an Analysis of the Child’s Play with Hi-Tech Toys This section gives you some questions and activities to help you think about how you can use some of the ideas from this chapter in your work.

Research 1. Conduct a chronological stock take of the resources that your early childhood education centre provides for children. 2. Consider the use of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ resources and, in particular, the ways in which the children engage with resources. 3. Observe the interests of children and extend upon these interests through questions about ‘intention’ and ‘design’. 4. Listen to the languages that children use to describe and relate to toys.

The Impact of Technology on Early Childhood Education

Reflect 1. Create your own ‘toy story’ – a genealogy of your toys – and reflect on how this story has shaped your values and beliefs regarding play and education. 2. Gather information on the television shows that children are interested in and take the time to watch these shows and the ways in which technology is presented to the viewer. 3. Have a discussion with your colleagues about what it means to be an adult and/or a child, considering for instance how our beliefs regarding adulthood and childhood shape our aspirations for children. 4. Examine your feelings about technology and the factors/people that have shaped the way you perceive yourself in relation to technology.

Practice 1. Research in your community for individuals and groups that collect, restore and recycle technologies and invite them to your centre and/or organize a trip. Ask them to talk about why they collect, restore and recycle. 2. Draw upon your knowledge of the individual and collective interests of the children and families to prepare an activity centre that promotes concepts of real, natural, artificial, alive, mechanic, and more (perhaps start with a germinating pea and a virtual pet).

REFERENCES

Croissant, J. (1998). Growing up cyborg: Development stories for postmodern children. In DavisFloyd, R., & Dumit, J. (Eds.), Cyborg babies: From techno-sex to techno-tots (pp. 285–298). New York, NY: Routledge. Cross, G. (1997). Kids’stuff: Toys and the changing world of American childhood. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cross, G. (2004). The cute and cool: Wondrous innocence and modern American children’s culture. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Davis-Floyd, R., & Dumit, J. (1998). Cyborg babies: From techno-sex to techno-tots. New York, NY: Routledge. Dreyfus, H. L., & Spinosa, C. (2002). Highway bridges and feasts: Heidegger and Borgmann on how to affirm technology. In Dreyfus, H., & Wrathall, M. (Eds.), Heidegger re-examined: Art, poetry and technology (Vol. III, pp. 175–193). New York, NY: Routledge. Ellul, J. (1964). The technological society (Wilkinson, J., Trans.). New York, NY: Vintage Books. Falbel, A. (1991). The computer as a convivial tool. In Harel, I., & Papert, S. (Eds.), Constructionism (pp. 29–37). New Jersey: Ablex Publishing. Fleer, M. (1999). Technology for children: Developing your own approach. Sydney, Australia: Prentice Hall. Fleer, M. (2001). Science for children: Developing a personal approach to teaching. Frenchs Forest, New South Wales, Australia: Pearson.

Ariès, P. (1962). Centuries of childhood (Baldick, R., Trans.). London, UK: Jonathan Cape.

Froebel, F. (1886). Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel (Michaelis, E., & Moore, H. K., Trans.). London, England: Swan, Sonneschein and Co.

Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory and mass communication. Media Psychology, 3, 265–299. doi:10.1207/S1532785XMEP0303_03

Gebhardt-Seele, P. G. (1985). The computer and the child: A Montessori approach. Rockville, MD: Computer Science Press.

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Gee, J. P. (2005). Learning by design: Good video games as learning machines. E-learning, 2(1), 5–16. doi:10.2304/elea.2005.2.1.5 Ghiraldelli, P. Jr. (2000). The fundamentals of Gepeto’s philosophy of education: Neopragmatism and infancy in the postmodern world. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 32(2), 201–207. doi:10.1111/j.1469-5812.2000.tb00444.x Gibbons, A. N. (2007). The matrix ate my baby. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Gough, N. (2004). RhizomANTically becomingcyborg: Performing posthuman pedagogies. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 46(3), 253–265. doi:10.1111/j.1469-5812.2004.00066.x Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology. In Heidegger, M. (Ed.), The question concerning technology and other essays (pp. 1–49). (Lovitt, W., Trans.). New York, NY: Harper & Row. In-Stat. (2008). Continued growth in the worldwide market for portable, electronic based edutainment toys (Report No. IN0804073ID) Retrieved from http://instat.com/ newmk.asp Kafai, Y., & Harel, I. (1991). Children learning through consulting: When mathematical ideas, knowledge of programming and design, and playful discourse are intertwined. In Harel, I., & Papert, S. (Eds.), Constructionism (pp. 111–140). New Jersey: Ablex Publishing. Kahn, P. H., Jr., Friedman, B., Perez-Granados, D. R., & Freier, N. G. (2004). Robotic pets in the lives of preschool children. CHI, 24-29 April, Vienna, Austria, (pp. 1449-1452). Keesing-Styles, L. (2002). A critical pedagogy of early childhood education: The Aotearoa/New Zealand context. New Zealand Research in Early Childhood Education, 5, 109–121.

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Lankshear, C., Peters, M. A., & Knobel, M. (1996). Critical pedagogy and cyberspace. In Giroux, H., Lankshear, C., McLaren, P., & Peters, M. A. (Eds.), Counternarratives: Cultural studies and critical pedagogies in postmodern spaces (pp. 149–188). New York, NY: Routledge. Lind, K. K. (2005). Exploring science in early childhood (4th ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning. Luke, A., & Luke, C. (2001). Adolescence lost/ childhood regained: On early intervention and the emergence of the techno-subject. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 1(1), 91–120. doi:10.1177/14687984010011005 Luke, C. (1999). What next? Toddler netizens, Playstation thumb, techno-literacies. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 1(1), 95–100. doi:10.2304/ciec.2000.1.1.10 Lyotard, J.-F. (1999). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge (Bennington, G., & Massumi, B., Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Marsh, J. (2002). Electronic toys: Why should we be concerned? A response to Levin & Rosenquest (2001). Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 3(1), 132–138. doi:10.2304/ciec.2002.3.1.3 May, J. (2010). James May’s toy stories. London, England: Conway Publishing. Milne, A. A. (2007). The house at Pooh Corner. London, England: Egmont. Papert, S. (1991a). Perestroika and epistemological politics. In Harel, I., & Papert, S. (Eds.), Constructionism (pp. 13–28). New Jersey: Ablex Publishing. Papert, S. (1991b). Situating constructionism. In Harel, I., & Papert, S. (Eds.), Constructionism (pp. 1–12). New Jersey: Ablex Publishing.

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Papert, S. (1993). The children’s machine: Rethinking school in the age of the computer. New York, NY: BasicBooks. Postman, N. (1994). Disappearance of childhood. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Resnick, M., & Ocko, S. (1991). LEGO/Logo: Learning through and about design. In Harel, I., & Papert, S. (Eds.), Constructionism (pp. 141–150). New Jersey: Ablex Publishing. Sutton-Smith, B. (1986). Toys as culture. New York, NY: Gardener Press. Sutton-Smith, B. (1997). The ambiguity of play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Thomas, A. (2006). MSN was the next big thing after Beanie Babies: Children’s virtual experiences as an interface to their identities and their everyday lives. E-learning, 3(2), 126–142. doi:10.2304/ elea.2006.3.2.126 Turkle, S. (1996). Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet. London, England: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Turkle, S. (1998). Cyborg babies and cy-doughplasm: Ideas about self and life in the culture of simulation. In Davis-Floyd, R., & Dumit, J. (Eds.), Cyborg babies: From techno-sex to techno-tots (pp. 317–329). New York, NY: Routledge. Turkle, S. (2005). The second self: Computers and the human spirit. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Van Manen, M., & Levering, B. (1996). Childhood’s secrets: Intimacy, privacy, and the self reconsidered. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Weigel, M., James, C., & Gardner, H. (2009). Learning: Peering backward and looking forward in the digital era. International Journal of Learning and Media, 1(1), 1–18. doi:10.1162/ ijlm.2009.0005 Wilensky, U. (1991). Abstract meditations on the concrete and concrete implications for mathematics education. In Harel, I., & Papert, S. (Eds.), Constructionism (pp. 193–203). New Jersey: Ablex Publishing.

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Chapter 2

Enculturation of Young Children and Technology Alexandru Spatariu Georgetown College, USA Andrea Peach Georgetown College, USA Susan Bell Georgetown College, USA

ABSTRACT Children are exposed to technology in many ways. As technology use in informal settings like the home, the community, the library, the zoos, and museums increases, children are exposed to a variety of applications and technology availability. Each generation of children come to early childhood programs with increasingly different experiences and exposure to technology. Technology has become a strong cultural influence in the lives of children, and we need to explore and think about how this will impact development and learning.

INTRODUCTION: ENCULTURATION ENVIRONMENTS IN TECHNOLOGY Enculturation is “the process by which an individual learns the traditional content of a culture and assimilates its practices and values” (MeriamWebster, 2010). But, in this technological world, DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-059-0.ch002

the content and tools used by the traditional culture are changing at a staggering rate. Just think about it. We live in a world where we now use our phones to send texts instead of talking on them, where we ‘TiVo’ instead of watching live television shows (or, we watch the shows on our computers), where we can instantly access and read books and newspapers on portable e-book readers and ‘tablets’, and where young children

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Enculturation of Young Children and Technology

play with robotic pets and toys. By the time the ‘traditional’ culture adopts one of these new technology tools, the tools change. Although teachers and parents may only think of computers when hearing the word ‘technology’, most young children today are growing up in an environment abundant with technology of all kinds. So, for this chapter, we will broaden the definition of technology to encompass more than just computers. Plowman & Stephen (2003), for example, discussed information and communications technologies (ICT) that not only covered computers, but also computer-related devices (e.g., musical keyboards, recorders, electronic toys, and even remote controls). Because of the convergence of computers and media, we have also included in this definition of technology computer-based portable devices, such as video game consoles (both hand-held and larger), mobile media devices (such as the Apple iPod and other MP3 players and PDAs, both with and without video capabilities), and e-book devices (such as the Apple iPad, Amazon Kindle, and other e-readers). Non-interactive television will not be discussed in terms of the use of technology, however it should be mentioned that young children may be influenced in their use of technology through what they view on television and other screen-based media (Rideout, Vandewater, & Wartella, 2003). Computers, cell phones, video games, music players, computer-based animation, 3d movies and other mobile or fixed technologies are available everywhere from people’s homes to stores, restaurants, and school classrooms; therefore we will discuss enculturation of young children and technology as it relates to these types of devices. The National Center for Education Statistics (2003) conducted an early childhood longitudinal study on computer access at home and at school. Results indicate that in only one year, from 1999 to 2000, Internet access increased from 49% to 60% for home access and from 75% to 92% for school and classroom access. Considering the rapid development and decrease in cost of technology

we can foresee that, within the 10 years that have passed since this survey was conducted, virtually every home and classroom in the United States has computer and other types of technology access for regular use. As the availability of computers, Internet connections, and various types of software has increased tremendously inside and outside the classroom setting, parents and teachers in all grade levels seek to use and integrate these new technologies to improve students’ learning. Thus, since this media / technology use increases with the age of the child (Lee, Bartolic & Vandewater, 2009; Roberts & Foehr, 2008), the main issue with existing technology becomes the developmental appropriateness of how it is used by children of different age and grade levels (Haugland, 2000). The chapter is divided into three main discussion sections. The first section discusses various types of technology used by children in nonschool settings. Parental issues and developmental considerations are included to give the reader a more comprehensive understanding of how the digital age touches all parts of children’s lives. The second section examines the use of technologies with young children from a developmental perspective. We also address concerns with the uses of these technologies in relationship to teaching and learning. We hope to dispel some of the technology myths that teachers of young children have about technology and learning in the early childhood classroom. The concept of the digital divide is addressed in this section as well. The last section of this chapter discusses technology evaluation issues and concrete use of technology by educators of young children.

Objectives While technology is experienced by all age groups in different ways, the goal of this chapter is to address young children from birth to 8 years of age. After reading this chapter the reader should develop a better understanding of:

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Enculturation of Young Children and Technology

•

•

•

•

What types of exposure to technology do young children experience in the early home setting What the implications for early development and learning are through exposure to technology What the best practices for teachers and parents are for technology and with young children How children are enculturated through technology in formal and informal settings

BACKGROUND: YOUNG CHILDREN’S EXPOSURE TO TECHNOLOGY IN THE HOME AND OTHER NON-SCHOOL SETTINGS Children are exposed to technology in many ways. As technology use in informal settings like the home, the community, the library, the zoos and museums increases children are exposed to a variety of applications and technology availability. Each generation of children come to early childhood programs with increasingly different experiences and exposure to technology. Technology has become a strong cultural influence in the lives of children and this enculturation process changes the images of childhood.

Home and Non-School Related Computing Children are exposed to technology in the home from the time they are born. In a study reported by Vandewater and others (2007), 78% of homes with young children had computers and 69% had Internet access. In addition, one half of the surveyed households had a video game console and between one-fifth (0-2 year olds) and one-third (5-6 year olds) had access to a hand-held video game (Vandewater et al., 2007). Not surprisingly, children spend more uninterrupted time on com-

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puters at home rather than at school (Plowman & Stephen, 2003). Children under the age of 2 do not use computers as much as children from the age of 3 to 6. Only five percent of children under 2 years of age have used a computer and only three percent have played video games. When you expand this to include 3-year- olds, 10% of boys and 5% of girls use computers in a typical day, and, when examining the computer use of 4 to 6-year-olds, these numbers increase to 28% of boys and 23% of girls (Rideout & Hamel, 2006). According to Vandewater and others (2007), 27% of 5 to 6- yearolds used computers 50 minutes on average per week. When you include other electronic devices, like cell phones, MP3 / iPods, monitoring devices such as baby monitors and ‘Nanny cams’, video, image, and audio recording devices (cameras), and other portable media devices (including those found in many cars and other transportation options), an even greater exposure to technology by very young children is evident.

Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it” (Weiser, 1991, p.2). First introduced by Mark Weiser, ubiquitous computing refers to the occurrence of computer-like functionality that exists in the absence of traditional computer hardware (Ubiquitous computing, 2010). Essentially, these are computers that exist in everyday objects, “from coffee cups to raincoats to the paint on the walls” (Greenfield, 2006, p. 11). Ubiquitous and pervasive computing is already having an impact on everyday life. For example, think about driving a car. From the built-in computer that optimizes the engine and notifies you if the oil is low, to the stop lights that change depending on how many cars are stopped on the sensor block, computers, while basically invisible to the user, are everywhere and

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pervasive (Stringer, Halloran, Hornecker, and Fitzpatrick, 2005). Another example includes the fairly recent proliferation of portable hand-held network-enabled computing devices, such as smart phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), e-book readers, and even some portable music (MP3) players. The educational uses of these devices are of great interest to many researchers. For example, augmented reality instructional environments and games, which utilize the Global Positioning System (GPS) capabilities built into cell phones and other portable devices, have been developed to immerse students in simulated environments which allow them to investigate real-world problems in an artificial world. An example of this use of augmented reality is the Handheld Augmented Reality Project (HARP), which has designed a ‘game’ that involves the students in an educational simulation, incorporating math and science skills, discovering why ‘aliens’ have landed on Earth (Hough, 2007). Vint Cerf, one of the early architects of the Internet and now at Google, recently theorized that even socks may someday be connected to the Internet, so that, if one fell behind the washer, it would notify the other sock where it was (Bilton, 2010).

Technology-Based Toys Another form of ubiquitous computing is found in toys. In recent years, the availability of technologybased toys has exploded. Frazel (2007) mentions some of these toys, including toy cell phones, computer-like devices by Oregon Scientific, Vtech, and Fisher Price, toy calculators, walkie talkies, and PDAs. Since 2007, however, even more sophisticated toys have emerged. The toys listed on the Parent’s Choice Awards for 2009 included many toys with electronic / computer components, including digital cameras, a nightvision camcorder, PDA/laptop-type devices that teach spelling, counting, and handwriting, remotecontrolled devices, board games with electronic features, and even a robotic ‘bug’. Even traditional

toys like Legos had kits that were based on a technology / science fiction theme (Parent’s Choice Awards, 2009). Other popular toys are paired with websites and computer games. In the near future, toys with 3-D or virtual-reality based interfaces should be available. A promising prototype of these ‘future’ toys are “Siftables”, which are like electronic building blocks. Users can move these small devices around (e.g., “piling, sorting, stacking”) in order to interact with computerbased content and media (Sifteo, 2010). Early examples of applications may include games in which the Siftables work with each other or with a computer and even include new ways of writing music (Technology Review, 2010).

Media Convergence As mentioned earlier, computers are merging traditional media (e.g., books, magazines) with CD-ROMS, websites, smart books, toys, and interactive TV. This is causing distinctions between media to blur. For example, instead of containing text-based stories and photographs, many electronic newspapers, magazines, and books now contain digital video and/or audio content, interactive elements such as games, forms and surveys, and social networking tools like blogs, discussion forums, and links to sites like Facebook and Twitter. Savvy Internet users can even create their own ‘mashups’ of a variety of electronic resources from different sources to create their own electronic ‘newspapers’ or ‘magazines’ (see Feedly.com for an example of a tool to create a mashup of various Internet-based resources). Children seem to move between these media seamlessly. For example, children’s introduction to computer software is often related to TV shows, animated films, or games (Marsh & Thompson 2001). Young children (infancy to age 3 or so) may be exposed to wonderful educational television shows like Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer and then may have the opportunity to play with spin-off toys like the Elmo Live Encore by Fisher

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Enculturation of Young Children and Technology

Price, an electronic plush toy that tells stories, sings songs, and has very life-like motions, or a Dora The Explorer ‘LeapPad’ book by the LeapFrog company that not only reads the story, but also includes interactive activities and games. Older preschoolers and children (ages 3-8) have even more sophisticated choices, including computerbased, console (such as the Nintendo Wii), or handheld (such as the Nintendo DS or Leap-frog systems) educational or non-educational video games based on movie or television characters (for example, Disney characters like Winnie the Pooh, Tinkerbell, and the ‘Cars’ movie characters), or even video games and videos based on popular toys (such as Barbie and GI Joe). By using educational image and animation software like KidPix (http://www.mackiev.com/kid_pix.html) or Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/), children can write and animate their own digital stories based on their favorite media characters. Children can even download pictures from the Internet and use them as the ‘wallpaper’ for cell phones and download cartoon theme music as ringtones. This phenomenon is similar to what Kinder (1991) refers to as ‘trans-media intertextuality’, which refers to television, film or videogame spin-offs such as clothing, confectionery, lunch boxes, toys, and magazines.

New Media Technologies It is also important to understand that new media technologies such as online gaming, texting, and social networking are a central part of young children and young adults’ life. Although they could be somewhat viewed by parents as a waste of time, these activities can promote motivation, self-directed learning, socialization and independence (Ito et al., 2008). Young children with older siblings at home may even be exposed to technology at a higher rate as the older children are already heavily engaged in media use. According to the recent Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18- Year Olds

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(Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010) report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, children from ages 8 to 18 years spend, on average, 1 hour and 13 minutes a day playing video games, 1 hour and 29 minutes using computers, and 2 hours and 31 minutes listening to music or audio, in addition to 4 hours and 29 minutes watching TV. This accounts for almost 7 hours and 38 minutes a day. Many times, these older children are multi-tasking (i.e., watching TV while playing video games and texting friends). Likewise, young parents are influencing young children with their use of media and technology. For example, the Video Consumer Mapping Study (2009) found that young adults ages 18 to 34 (a group typically represented by today’s parents of young children) spend an average of 163.0 minutes using computers, 19.9 minutes per day playing video games, and using mobile technologies an average of 33.4 minutes (Video Consumer Mapping Study, 2009). As was found within the M2 study, media multitasking was equivalent for all age groups under 55. Additionally, a study conducted by Mandese (2008), reported that more than half of adults rely on at least one web 2.0 platform (a participatory Internet application for information sharing, such as Facebook or Twitter) for regularly communicating with friends, family or colleagues. When you focus on adults ages 18 – 34, the number soars to 85% (Mandese, 2008). While there is a fair amount of research on the influence of parent involvement on the achievement levels of their children (Desimone, 1999; Roberts, Jurgen, & Burchinal, 2005), very little is still known about the parental use of technology and what role that plays in young children’s appropriation and engagement with new media.

Home-Based Assistive Technology Children who have special physical and behavior/ learning needs may be exposed to early homebased specific assistive technology. Studies have

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shown that children under the age of 3 can benefit from assistive technology, ranging from prosthetic hands, to switches for operating toys, power mobility devices, and communications tools. However, even though organizations such as The National Association for the Education of Young Children and The Division for Early Childhood (a division of the Council for Exceptional Children) have set guidelines for using assistive technology with young children, the actual implementation is seemingly low (Galyon-Keramidas & Collins, 2009). The low implementation could be due to a series of factors ranging from lack of funds for equipment to insufficient training.

Educational Uses of Technology by Young Children at Home Buckingham & Scanlon (2001) refer to the growing ‘curricularisation’ of learning in the home, as exemplified by the proliferation of broadly educational magazines aimed at the pre-school market. The Young Children’s Access to Computers in the Home and at School in 1999 and 2000 survey (Rathbun, West, & Hausken, 2003) reported that over 85% of children who used computers at home used them for educational purposes. In the study by Rideout & Hamel (2006), 69% of parents reported that using computers helps children’s learning. Plowman and Stephen (2003) reported that parents want to buy computer technology that has educational purposes. The fast advancement of educational-related technology tools and the increase in access to it at home and public places have led to a discrepancy between in and out of school use (Buckingham, 2007; Purcell, 2010). This situation has led to two main education-related issues. First, schools have to deal with a whole new type of student who is technologically skilled and has contact with education beyond the classroom walls (Ito, et al., 2010; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Reingold, 2006). So, educators need to learn new technologies and how to incorporate what students use from home

into classroom settings so they can continue the effective and conducive venues that technology brings to learning. Second, when children are at home, parents have a stronger perception that their children are protected and free from harm. Advancement of technologies has opened up house walls as children can chat with the wrong peers or predators, look up inappropriate or disturbing information, and become very physically inactive or lethargic (Plowman & Stephen, 2003). To combat this potential issue, parents and educators should strive to increase their students’ ability to locate pertinent and useful information. It is evident that simply using social networking sites and other Internetbased applications does not guarantee the proper and optimal use of these resources (Campbell, 2010). In addition to making sure Internet savvy children develop proper computer literacy so they can discern valuable from bad information (Barlow, 2010), researchers propose that students need to develop good word processing and presentation skills in order to properly create, format, edit, organize and deliver content (Heinrichs & Lim, 2010). The development of these skills could, and perhaps should, start at home.

Educational Computing Outside Home but not in School Setting As mentioned previously, children are exposed to technology in many areas outside of the home environment. From riding in a car, shopping in a store, eating at a restaurant, or going to the doctor’s office, technology is prevalent throughout everyday life. Other quasi-educational experiences allow the young child to have a more interactive role with the technology. Children’s museums, for example, have interactive exhibits that allow young children to play with different aspects of technology. According to Mayfield, (2005), children’s museums are “user friendly, interactive, hands-on, attractive, non-threatening and stimulating places designed and developed for children”

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(p. 181). These museums, many times, use various forms of technology, including computer kiosks, electronic toys, PDA’s, and technology-based simulated environments, to allow children to interact with the exhibits (Mayfield, 2005; Wang et al, 2009). Other education-based activities, like zoos, aquariums, smaller theme-based exhibitions, camps, libraries, and even theme parks, have similar types of technology-based activities designed for preschool children. Although most current research does not report on the technology access for children outside both the classroom and the home, it may be surmised that some children who do not have such access still may encounter technology either through friends, public spaces such as libraries, exhibits or stores, or through other everyday life settings, and, as such, these children are functioning in a rapidly technologically advancing environment.

Early Child-Care Technology Access Many young children spend time in non-school related daycare situations, either in a private home, religious- or facility -based child care situation (i.e., church nursery, fitness center childcare, Mother’s Day Out program) or a licensed day care facility. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2006) 55% of children were cared for in a licensed day care facility, and another 2% in unlicensed facilities (excluding group homes). Many (if not most) of licensed daycare facilities have and use technology-based resources. For example, according to a study by Lynch and Warner (2004), the majority of licensed day care centers in the state of Texas had computers and allowed the children to use them in different ways. Besides computers, the children would, most certainly, be exposed to other technology similar to what they would see at home (i.e., electronic toys and games, media devices). In religious institutions, children will often experience the use of technology in ways not experienced in the home, such as singing to

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music projected by data projectors, seeing musicians play on electronic musical instruments, and singing with the use of microphones. Going on a ‘play date’ at a friend’s home or visiting with relatives further exposes young children to technology in everyday life.

Parental Guidance of Young Children Using Computers Parents are many times active participants with their children while using computers. For example, Rideout & Hamel (2006) found that over two-thirds of parents of children from infancy to pre-school age either always or, at least partially, monitor or help their children use the computer. However, 27% of parents reported allowing their young children to use the computer without direct supervision. In addition, while 18% of these young children have been on the Internet looking for child-friendly websites with parental assistance, 10% of young children are not directly supervised while browsing the Internet and parents report that these children have gone to websites by themselves. Setting rules on computer use was reported by 75% of parents whose children use computers (Rideout & Hamel, 2006). Not surprisingly, computer games are the most popular use of computers by children. Some parents allow their children to play computer games as ways to help them become more familiar with computers and, thus, to be ready for computer use in schools. (Plowman & Stephen, 2003). Cuban (2001) argues that this belief is not based on research but it does drive parental investment of computer use for their children (Sutherland, Facer, Furlong, & Furlong, (2000). Many researchers caution parents against allowing young children under the age of 3 to use screen-based technology, primarily because the learning styles of young children seemingly do not match the experiences of using computers. (Haugland, 2000). Parents are also concerned about increased levels of computer use (Suther-

Enculturation of Young Children and Technology

land et al., 2000). Most concerns of technology use by young children revolve around protecting children online. For example, the National School Boards Foundation (NSBF, 2000) surveyed 1735 households (with children between ages 2-17). Children and parents both view the Internet as a positive influence on their children’s lives; however the parents reported concerns about content (i.e., pornography, adult content, hate speech). The Annenberg Public Policy Centre (Turow & Nir, 2000) also found that parents are concerned about privacy issues and Internet use. A study by Gilutz & Nielsen (2002) found that children click on website ads because they misperceive them as web content. This study calls for adults to help teach children about Internet advertising. Other concerns about technology use include vision issues (American Optometric Association, 2010), repetitive strain injuries (Subrahmanyam, Kraut, Greenfield, & Gross, 2000), addiction, increased aggression, or other behavior problems (Hastings, Karas, Winsler, Way, Madigan & Tyler, 2009), and sedentary lifestyles / obesity (Subrahmanyam et al., 2000), but many of these studies tend to focus on older children. Concerns about exposure to violence while using computer software, even software designed for educational computer use, is mentioned as well. Haugland (2000) even specifies the KidPix software program and how the interface allows children to ‘blow up’ objects that the children want to erase. Others fear that use of technology will result in less human (parent / teacher) – child interaction, less chance for playing in the ‘real world’, and more of an emphasis on academics rather than on social development. (Cordes & Miller, 2000). However, Clements & Sarama (2003) refute these claims and discuss research that shows the positive effects of using computers with children, even young children. While much of this research was published prior to 1999, the evidence shows not only academic, but also socio-emotional, effects of using technology. Later studies have shown that media use (including computer-based media) had

no relation to time spent playing outside or reading (Vandewater et al., 2007). Studies reflecting the broad-based developmental benefits of children’s use of technology will be specifically addressed later in this section. Parents can take some steps to ensure proper use of technology. While at home, parents can ask the children questions about the software they are using and games they are playing. The parents can also make sure that their children get plenty of physical activity in place of computer, game, or television time. Also, by introducing their children to rich educational technologies and allowing opportunities for other siblings and friends to use these technologies, parents can have a great impact on future educational experiences (PBS Parents, 2010). A potential issue of parents interacting with children when it comes to new media is the inability of the parent to relate to the media and understand their children’s social, communication, and gaming needs and actions. Simply instituting restrictions and barriers will not solve the problem. It is more advisable to keep in touch with the technology, the ways of communication, and the Internet culture as a whole. Knowing this type of information allows for a better understanding of children’s electronic whereabouts and permits parents to protect their children from harm in a very informed manner (Ito et al., 2010).

Technology and Unstructured Play Unstructured, exploratory play has been deemed critical for the development of school readiness skills such as self-regulation, representational or symbolic thought, memory (Li & Atkins, 2004; Ritchie, Maxwell, & Bredekamp, 2009) and creativity (Howard-Jones, Taylor, & Sutton, 2002). Research has shown that game playing is also characteristic of young adults where motivation and participation was connected to gender, engagement, and hours of time spent playing. Gaming was reported to be relaxing, cognitively challeng-

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Enculturation of Young Children and Technology

ing, and socially engaging (Hoffman & Nadelson, 2009; Schrader, & McCreery, 2007). It appears that young people use online media as an excellent means to connect and make friends, explore personal interests, join social groups, advertise personal music and art, and build projects as well as engage in learning activities based on their own interests that are not common within mainstream educational institutions (Ito et al., 2008). Only 3% of children under the age of 2 have played a video game. However, by age 3, the percent of video game use increases to 15% of boys and 10% of girls. Not surprisingly, these figures increase to 64% of boys and 48% of girls when looking at children from 4 to 6-years-old (Rideout & Hamel, 2006). It may be that this increase is connected with advanced development which takes place at this age, and allows for higher levels of engagement, motivation, challenge, and social interaction that games usually provide. As seen above, boys are nearly twice more likely to play video games than are girls (Bickham et al., 2003; Rideout & Hamel, 2006). Play during early childhood is remarkably gender-segregated (Fabes, Martin, & Hanish, 2004). Decades of research studies have defined gender differences in friendship group composition and play style, with girls preferring small, intimate, cooperative play activities, and boys engaging in competitive, active play in larger same-gender groupings (Weinberger & Stein, 2008). Gender preferences for on-line and other technology-based activities follow predictable patterns. Girls communicate to connect while boys compete to dominate. Thus, boys would be expected to exhibit a preference for the primarily competitive activity of video game playing. It has been observed frequently that one of the most powerful aspects of technology is the level of sustained engagement it compels. In a review of video gaming in particular, Miller and Robertson (2010) identify several motivational factors including: a) the experience of being “in the zone” or having one’s attention totally absorbed

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in the activity, b) the improvements in confidence or increased self-esteem that accompany mastery of learning or performance goals, and c) the sense of participating in a culturally valued activity (i.e., gaining expertise in computer games).

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY In this next section, we will delve more into these developmental milestones and how they can help both parents and educators use technology more effectively with young children. We will also discuss how other factors, such as the digital divide and cultural factors can influence the optimal use of technology with young children.

Technology Impact on Development and Learning Early childhood curricula and instruction is rooted in the theoretical models of Piaget (1952) and Vygotsky (1978). Piaget’s cognitive developmental model proposes that children’s thinking and reasoning gradually matures through a series of stages from infancy to adulthood. As part of this maturation process, children take an active role in constructing their own knowledge from interactions with people and objects in the classroom environment. Children construct schemas or mental representations of their experiences. As they come into contact with information relevant to a particular concept (e.g., fish), they assimilate it, enriching their knowledge base (e.g., different colors or sizes of fish; fish that live in salt or freshwater environments). Another Piagetian cognitive process, accommodation, occurs when the child encounters an experience that doesn’t quite fit an existing schema. (For example, when the child views information about dolphins, a new schema must be constructed; a category must be created for mammals that live in the water but are not fish.) Technology-based activities can expand

Enculturation of Young Children and Technology

the breadth and depth of experiences, prompting both assimilation and accommodation on a variety of topics. As children progress through successive cognitive developmental stages, Piaget hypothesizes that thought processes become increasingly rulegoverned and complex. During the sensorimotor stage, infants struggle to orient toward sensory input (i.e., sights, sounds, smells, tastes. or tactile sensations) and eventually to coordinate motor responses to control their occurrence. Many of the computerized toys marketed to parents of infants provide multi-sensory stimulation from the slightest of movements. The intent is to capture the baby’s interest and facilitate mastery of cause-effect linkages. Object permanence is a major accomplishment of this stage. As the child understands that objects continue to exist out of sensory awareness, the infant begins to enjoy toys that incorporate “seek and find” or “peek-a boo” elements. Toward the end of the sensorimotor stage and the beginning of the preoperational stage, toddlers use words, pictures or play to symbolize or represent objects or events. It is usually at this age that children first benefit from interaction with computerized books or games. The preoperational child’s strong interest in fantasy and egocentric point of view are apparent and influence preferences for technology-based activities that are highly engaging. Rules must be simple and provide obvious and immediate consequences. Moving into the next stage, concrete operations, the child becomes increasingly capable of logical, rule-governed play. Activities that require classifying, ordering, or otherwise arranging objects are of interest. Children become increasingly proficient at computer games that involve cooperation, perspective taking, and/or competition. The constructivist model emphasizes the critical role of teacher collaboration in children’s learning (Hong & Trepanier-Street, 2004). Vygotskian theory (1978) discusses the importance of identifying the zone of proximal development

(ZPD) for each individual child. The ZPD is the point at which a child can accomplish a task with cues and/or guidance, but is incapable of independent functioning. A closely related concept, scaffolding, involves the role of the skilled peer or teacher who gradually supports the inexperienced child in his or her efforts at understanding and mastery of some concept or task. In many early childhood classrooms, technology use is changing the nature of child-directed learning activities and the role of teacher scaffolding of that process. In the next section, we discuss the importance of adult scaffolding of technology-related activities in early childhood. From another theoretical perspective, cognitive psychologists examine the maturation of children’s cognitive skills over time. As one example, memory capacity (i.e., the number of separate items or events that the child can hold in memory simultaneously or the ability to follow multi-step directions), speed and space for processing (i.e., how much information the child can process in a given period of time), strategy use (i.e., for young children, the internalization of rules and routines), knowledge base (i.e., factual and procedural information), and metamemory (i.e., monitoring and improving the memory system) gradually improve with chronological age (Barry, 2006). Choices for child technology use should reflect an understanding of this cognitive maturation process, ensuring a match between cognitive capability and task demand. A special issue of the journal Developmental Psychology focused on the developmental impact of technology and Internet use on young children and adolescents. In an introduction to the series, Greenfield and Yan (2006) described the Internet as a toolkit with a myriad of applications, each of which could be used for good or ill. As mentioned earlier, despite early concerns over potential academic, social, or physical harm, evidence is mounting for skill enhancement in such areas as planning, resource location, critical evaluation of information, and visual memory (Subrahmanyam,

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Enculturation of Young Children and Technology

et al., 2000; Tarpley, 2001). In a recent study, Johnson (2010) assessed the cognitive skills of children from first through fifth grade and questioned parents about their children’s Internet use. Time spent in Internet activities such as online learning, communication, and playing contributed more to variance in cognitive development than family socioeconomic status. It is recommended that early computer use should be based on the developmental level of the child, and the young child should not be pushed into using computers too soon as technology can damage or hinder the development process (Healy, 1998). In general video-based activities are not seen as effective and instrumental in child development as manipulative objects. However, early exposure may make children more prepared to use computers in subsequent school settings (Haugland, 2000). Technology has advanced so fast that currently there are three- dimensional applications and also manipulative games that can develop visual, motor, and intellectual skills at the same time.

Does this Early Use of Technology in the Home Truly Have a Positive Effect on Learning? Research supporting early use of computers at home is promising. The use of computers by these children have positive effects on their ability to operate technology, with between 66 and 71% of five- to six-year-olds having the ability to use a mouse (Rideout & Hamel, 2006; Vandewater et al, 2007), 37% being able to load a CD-ROM, and 33% being able to actually to turn on the computer (Rideout & Hamel, 2006). In addition, Xiaoming, Atkins, and Stanton (2006) indicated that children who used computers with developmentally-appropriate software 15-20 minutes a day outperformed control students in a standard Head Start curriculum on school readiness tests. The students who performed the best were those who used computers both at home

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and at school. Li and Atkins (2004) found that computer access at home was reported to have a significant positive effect on preschool concepts and cognitive skills (Clements & Sarama, 2003; Li & Atkins, 2004). The positive effects encompassed increased performance on school readiness (Boehm 3 Preschool) and cognitive tests (WPPSI-R) but did not indicate a strong connection to visual motor or gross motor skills. Plowman (1998) proposed that early computer use could help young children with beginning literacy skills, including being familiar with screen conventions, exhibiting electronic text understanding, researching information, creating electronic text, and evaluating media text sources. For example Lewin (2000) researched the effects of electronic books talking to 5- to 6year-old children. It appeared that the electronic books can have positive cognitive and affective outcomes. Even younger children can develop word recognition and vocabulary skills with this type of software. However, particular attention needs to be paid to the developmental stage of the child when using new media as it may not be effective unless it adapts or corresponds to particular levels of development. Shilling (1997) researched the use of electronic speech feedback and found out that children with metalinguistic awareness benefited from it and improved word identification and construction while those who were not aware could not perceive the nature of the speech-synthesized feedback.

Facilitation of Knowledge and Skill Development Through Computer Use Access to developmentally appropriate computerbased activities in the early childhood classroom has resulted in broad developmental gains in study after study. Research has documented differential gains in emergent literacy, fine motor skills, pre-math skills, concept learning, language and vocabulary skills, motor skills, creativity, social and emotional competence, and self-esteem with

Enculturation of Young Children and Technology

computer-based learning (Ainsa, 1989; Li & Atkins, 2004; Nikolopoulou 2007; Parette, Hourcade, and Heiple, 2000). In an early study of the impact of technology on developmental progress, Haugland (1992) found that 3- and 4-year-old children who used computers in a Head Start classroom demonstrated significantly greater gains in such diverse domains as problem-solving and memory, language, and motor skills when compared with children in comparable classrooms without such access to technology. Teacher support was an important aspect of this success. Classroom technology is not limited to computer software. In a later study, Hong and TrepanierStreet (2004) demonstrated the effectiveness of the use of a wide range of technological devices (e.g., digital and video cameras, scanners, and Internet access) to help children represent and organize their individual ideas, communicate with classmates, collaborate on projects, and share their learning with the broader community outside the classroom. A particularly unique aspect of this use of technology was the degree to which parents felt empowered to actively participate in their children’s learning. As parents viewed pictures and videos of the process, they increasingly responded with suggestions and hands-on assistance.

Social Skills An initial concern was that increased use of technology would come at the expense of the child’s opportunities for social interaction with adults and peers. However, the number of computers available to children within a given classroom is limited. According to the findings of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, the student-to-computer ratio was 8.4 to 1 in Kindergarten and 7. 4 to 1 in first grade classrooms, far from the recommended access of 1 to 4 (Judge, Puckett, & Cabuk, 2004). In many classrooms, then, this means that computer time still presents opportunities for cooperation, turn-taking, sharing, negotiating, and conflict resolution. Yelland’s (2005) review of a decade

of research on technology use in early childhood classrooms revealed that computers increase children’s interest in collaboration on learning tasks and facilitates collaboration with peers. In a Swedish study of the roles that children take vis-à-vis computer use in the early childhood classroom, Ljung-Djarf (2008) found that children occupy circumscribed positions or roles with regard to group play at the computer. Children were observed and videotaped for 10-12 days over a period of three to four weeks. Researchers identified three specific roles: the owner (i.e., the one in charge of the mouse and/or keyboard and the person in power), the participant (i.e., the one who sits nearby, offering suggestions and support to the owner), and the spectator (i.e., the interested audience with no real influence on the activity, but who occasionally comments or intrudes). Far from solitary, children’s interactions in computer activities, then, are much like play found in any of the less technologically-based centers in the classroom. This approach to computer play may explain why access to technology has been found to support language development, facilitate prosocial behavior (i.e., more skilled children help less experienced peers negotiate the software or children cooperate together to accomplish the goals of the program), and encourage social interaction (Ljung-Djarf, 2008).

Emergent Literacy Exposure to print, particularly in the form of children’s literature, has long been the gold standard for encouraging emergent literacy in young children. Reading during the preschool years, however, now includes interpretations of on-screen symbols in a variety of technologies (Glister, 1997). Making meaning from digital text, including these on-screen symbols and icons, precedes, and later facilitates, children’s ability to make sense of print (Levy, 2009). Parette, Boeckmann, & Hourcade (2008) described the promise of a specific software program (Writing with Sym-

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bols 2000) in developing such emergent literacy concepts as phonemic awareness, vocabulary, comprehension, and general knowledge about the meaning and use of print. In a follow-up article, Parette, Hourcade, Boeckmann, & Blum (2008), recommended the use of Microsoft PowerPoint software for similar purposes.

Physical Activity A continuing concern is that increased use of technology inevitably will result in decreased time spent in active, vigorous, and healthful exercise. Recently software developers have addressed this concern with games and activities that are highly interactive and encourage whole body movement (e.g., much of the software associated with games for the Nintendo Wii). Ueoka and Hirose (2008) recently tested a technology to encourage children to learn while sustaining high levels of physical activity. Their play tool, Sound Tag, requires children to wear a device that emits sound feedback to direct children in a game that incorporates elements of traditional tag along with mastery of the sounds of musical instruments. Their research found that preschoolers sustained high levels of voluntary physical activity while operating the radio frequency identification system associated with the Sound Tag game.

Child-Directed Activity In keeping with constructivist theory, children learn best when they are “in charge” of the learning activity, and engaged in active exploration of a topic. Technology allows children to experiment and express their individual creativity, keeping the focus on the process of learning, not the final product (Nikolopoulou, 2007). This has implications for the types of technology selected for inclusion in the early childhood classroom. Haugland (1992, 1995) cautions against the use of software that has a limited focus on drill and skill practice. She suggests, instead, that software

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that is designed to be open-ended, allowing a high degree of child creativity and direction, is more beneficial in facilitating developmental gains.

Digital Divide Digital divide understanding has evolved from its incipient phase of socioeconomic and physical access to technologies to a more complex phase of a) estimating the ratio of available technology per student, b) considering gender, cultural and ethnic barriers, and c) evaluating accessibility by type of technology (Barron, Walter, Martin, &Schatz, 2010; Hargittai, 2010; Judge, Puckett, & Bell, 2006; Robinson & Crenshaw, 2010). A number of studies have examined aspects of economic status and technology access as main contributors to the digital divide. Results of an early childhood longitudinal study (Rathbun, West, & Hausken, 2003) indicated that almost all young kindergarten children had computer access at school. Even though children’s access to private or public in-school technologies did not significantly differ, socioeconomic status was still a predictor of technology use, particularly computer use, in the home environment. As children move to first grade and beyond, the digital divide was found to widen, even within the school setting. High poverty schools had less computer and software programs available, creating a major technology access issue (Sharon, Kathleen, & Burcu, 2004). Students with more access to technology at home know how to utilize a broader range of learning resources, and manifest more self-confidence in their technology skills (Barron, Walter, Martin, &Schatz, 2010). Measures have been taken to improve the level of technology access at school for all children (Puma, Chaplin, & Pape, 2003) and although many accomplishments have been made, the digital divide has taken new turns (i.e. gender, culture, generational, and special needs differences) that are currently being explored (Barron, Walter, Martin, &Schatz, 2010; Hutlinder & Johanson, 2000; Robinson & Crenshaw, 2010). It

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is possible that these new issues emerged as the availability of technology is less of a concern than how people use it. For instance, some games may be more appealing to certain age or social groups than others, or computer software may be more suitable for certain cultural groups, all depending on who creates them, for what purpose and what audience. A current issue in digital divide at the global level deals not only with socioeconomic status, but also with other demographic characteristics and with conflict processes. Existing research points out differences even among individuals within generations with similar exposure to computer technology. Results of an empirical study of young adults and Internet use show that subjects with comparable access and experiences differ based on higher levels of parental education, being male, and being white or Asian American, characteristics which are, in general, associated with more advanced skills (Hargittai, 2010). Both internal and external national factors play an important role in the digital divide. These societal aspects have a big impact on Internet access and use in developed as compared with developing countries (Robinson & Crenshaw, 2010). Conflicts and political issues impact the divide and the divide, in turn, contributes to political participation (Sylvester & McGlynn, 2010). Efforts continue to attempt to diminish the digital divide. One major initiative in technology infusion at the national level has been major governmental grant funding to prepare teachers to use technology (Intime, 2001; Project Thread, 2004; Plowman & Stephen; 2003; PT3, 2002). Many technology projects towards closing the divide also have been developed in special education (Hutlinder & Johanson, 2000) and towards closing generational divide gaps between adults and children (Cruz & Snider, 2009). One can surmise, based on existing empirical research, that the current generations of young children will manifest digital divide differences based on ethnicity, and bias in type of technology use (i.e.

software centered towards a certain population or promoting violence). The technology gap can be reduced by educators as well as the game producing companies. Software companies need to pay more attention to research findings and incorporate them in technology applications development. The government, different foundations (i.e. National Science Foundation), charities (i.e. Bill and Melinda Gates foundation) and other organizations have taken important steps in equipping many schools with the latest technologies and training educators in the use of new technologies as well.

Selecting and Incorporating Developmentally Appropriate Software The last section of the chapter presents educators with guidelines for selecting and incorporating developmentally appropriate software within the early learning environment. Previous technology experiences can be identified by teachers on a case-by-case basis by talking with the student and parents and by observing the student in the school setting. Students with special technology needs can be identified through specific assessments, and recommendations for appropriate technology can be made by special education teachers and related services personnel (e.g., speech or occupational therapists). As new generations are growing up surrounded by fast evolving tools requiring technology fluency, many educators are expressing a greater need to investigate the use of technology tools and young children (Baker & O’Neil, 2003). The normalcy of technology in children’s home lives makes the divide between teachers and students grow, therefore the use of technology in the classroom needs to be expanded to include tools such as Web 2.0, cell phone applications, social networking sites, and other new digital media (Digiovanni, Schwartz & Greer, 2009; Lee & Spires, 2009). Current research on generational differences makes it even more important for us to

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research and construct developmentally appropriate technology for young children. Currently, our schools have surpassed the millennial generation consisting of people born in between 1982 and 2000 and have moved into the generation z consisting of people born after the year 2001. This new generation is characterized among other things by being protected as children, needing meaningful work, intruding, receiving instant feedback, and craving community (Reeves & Eunjunh Oh, 2008). One can foresee how fast growing technology can both satisfy and exacerbate some of these characteristics that we as educators need to understand and capitalize on. We can use social media as a learning tool by infusing learning tasks and goals, understand the new directions in culture sharing and literacy, and capitalize on peer-based learning by becoming more involved in interest based Internet sites (Ito et al. 2008).

ISSUES, CONTROVERSIES, PROBLEMS As mentioned earlier, the impression of the role of technology as a tool for early childhood learning and development has not always been positive. The early report, Fool’s gold: A critical look at computers in childhood (Cordes & Miller, 2000), expressed fears that an increasing reliance on learning activities involving computers would somehow provide an inferior educational experience. Developmental progress would suffer from decreased interactions with real world objects, and children’s social skills would be impacted by participation in increasingly solitary play. This ominous warning of potential harm to cognitive and social development led early childhood educators to proceed with caution in the use of classroom technology until research demonstrated otherwise. The National Association for the Education for Young Children (NAEYC) developed a position statement on the use of technology in early childhood classrooms (1996). These guidelines

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described the importance of choosing technology that is a) developmentally, individually and culturally appropriate, b) integrated easily into the classroom curriculum, thereby extending traditional learning activities and materials, c) designed with maximal opportunities for child choice, creativity, and problem-solving, and d) created with no depictions of violence. In addition, the position statement recommends the use of computers and related technology in ways that facilitate cooperation and collaboration between children and their teachers and peers.

Early Childhood Curriculum There is a general consensus that applications of technology within the early childhood curriculum should: a) be developmentally appropriate, b) foster classroom learning goals and objectives, and c) be integrated as a part of the daily routine across a wide range of classroom activities and ongoing projects (Haugland, 1992; Judge, Puckett, & Cabuk, 2004; Mitchell, 2007; NAEYC, 1996; Nikolopoulou, 2007). In elementary school settings, computer software also should dovetail nicely with the state and district standards for specific curricular areas (Haugland, 1995). Rather than primarily choosing the software for interest and accessibility, and, secondarily assessing the goals and objectives it could address, Haugland recommends the reverse – to first delineate curricular objectives, and then select software specifically designed to meet them. Most early childhood researchers also emphasize the importance of identifying the curricular themes (e.g., emergent literacy, art, music, science) and preferred child outcomes (e.g., improved language development or mastery of basic concepts) prior to selecting a technological tool directed toward that purpose (Hutinger & Johanson, 2000). Hong and Trepanier-Street (2004) describe the use of a broad range of technology in a Reggio Emiliainspired early childhood classroom. Well beyond an exclusive focus on the classroom computer

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time, this program uses a range of technologies to enhance, extend and document learning (e.g., video cameras, scanners, and digital cameras).

Importance of Teacher Scaffolding In the developmentally appropriate early childhood classroom, technology should never replace opportunities for children to have face-to-face interaction with other children and adults (Mitchell, 2007). As mentioned in the previous section, children typically engage with technology in groups, taking more or less active roles, and negotiating choices. At times, however, teachers must step in to provide assistance for a novel or challenging activity. Children learn best when teachers provide appropriate levels of assistance in navigating the essential elements of the software, and give feedback on individual child choices. Teachers can play a variety of roles when extending children’s learning through technology. These may include guidance (i.e., what to do and how to do it), motivation (i.e., when, how long, and to what end?), scaffolding (i.e., what to do now/ instead), and problem-solving (i.e., whose turn is it? who chooses?) (Haugland, 1999; Schmid, Miodrag, & Di Francesco, 2008). Far from oneway instruction, Hong and Trepanier-Street (2004) found that children frequently identified aspects of classroom software with which the teachers were unfamiliar. In effect, these children were teaching their teachers. Hutinger and Johanson (2000) summarize the major components of a comprehensive technology system for early childhood. Their Early Childhood Comprehensive Technology System focuses on four discrete areas: teacher training, technology assessment of the individual child (i.e., assessment of how to tailor technology use to the child’s skills and needs), curricular integration, and Kindergarten transition activities. While this model focuses primarily on the needs of children with disabilities, it is instructive for the broader

early childhood community. It is imperative that teachers receive training in the selection and curricular integration of developmentally appropriate software, and the links between the use of technology tools and children’s developmental gains (Haugland, 1999).

Technology Evaluation A very important consideration in successfully using existing technology with young children is evaluation. The widespread use of computers makes software, website, mobile and other technology evaluation very important for improving student learning. For example, software needs to a) be developmentally appropriate, learner-centered, and capable of adjusting to individual needs, b) support exploration, imagination, interactivity, and problem solving, c) build on prior knowledge, and d) activate visual, auditory, vocal, and kinesthetic senses (Buckleitner, 1999; Geissinger, 1997; NCREL, 2004; NETC, 2005; Schrock, 2010). In addition, educators and parents also must have a clear purpose in mind before deciding on using a particular software (i.e. skill development, content understanding). Other educators, evaluation websites or organizations, and educational conferences are some of the venues that can provide trustworthy software evaluation. Web sites can be valuable resources for teaching and learning as well. In selecting resources for technology evaluation, the authorship, purpose, recency of information, and appropriateness for the students need to be considered (Schrock, 2010). In order to make informed decisions for technology adoption with children, educational conferences featuring technology papers, posters, or demonstrations can be attended in person or accessed through relevant databases (i.e. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education). There are also numerous organizations that provide technology evaluations (i.e. software, games) if schools do not have a system in place for it.

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Enculturation of Young Children and Technology

FUTURE TRENDS

CONCLUSION

The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt (2003) identifies and discusses three main principles about learning and teaching. The first principle is that students bring to class preconceptions about the world and knowledge. Some of this background knowledge involves misinterpretations or inaccurate understandings. Educators need to engage the students’ existing knowledge when introducing new information in class, especially if this knowledge is inaccurate, in order to build more complex and solid new meanings (Ormrod, 2009). The second principle is that students need solid factual and conceptual knowledge in order to be able to arrange knowledge for retrieval and application purposes. Good knowledge organization is necessary, not just mere memorization of facts, in order to be able to make meaning and connections. The third principle is that students need to develop and engage metacognitive processes in order to define and achieve learning goals. Processes contributing to meaningful learning include, but are not limited to, domain knowledge, self-efficacy, and knowledge of strategies (Bandura, 1997; Horn, Bruning, Schraw, and Curry, 1993; Hoffman & Spatariu, 2007). Technology can be instrumental in assisting students with these three important principles of learning by creating an environment that could be knowledge-centered, learner-centered, and assessment-centered, while promoting community engagement and independent learning at the same time (The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 2003). Intelligent technology-based learning environments can provide the necessary scaffolding, information, feedback, social connection, and strategy prompting for students to have a successful and meaningful learning experience and accomplish learning goals (Azeavedo, 2005; Moos & Azevedo, 2008).

Young children are immersed in a technological culture from birth, both through informal home and community exposure and through quasieducational situations. We have also mentioned the importance of recognizing the developmental stages that should encompass optional technology use by young children. Given the new insights of digital divide discussed in this chapter, we as educators have to be aware of ways in which the gaps can be narrowed. Ways to reduce the gap include technology selection without gender or ethnic bias, getting to know the children and their previous technology experience including exposure in the home, and identifying special needs and selecting adequate technology for these needs. Educators need to pay particular attention to the appropriateness of technology young children get access to, how it is integrated in the school curriculum, and how it addresses established cognitive principles of teaching and learning. We have also indicated the importance for parents to educate themselves about choosing appropriate technology for children. The increasing presence of technology in all aspects of the digital-age child has changed the socio-culture environment. Enculturation of young children will vary depending on family, school and community experiences. Children coming into early childhood programs bring a variety of experiences with technology from formal and informal settings. Schools and teachers will face the challenge of closing this gap through teacher training and providing appropriate materials.

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Reflecting on the Enculturation of Young Children and Technology This section gives you some questions and activities to help you think about how you can use some of the ideas from this chapter in your work.

Enculturation of Young Children and Technology

Research 1. Organize a focus group of parents, teachers, and young adults from the digital generation to discuss different indicators of technology enculturation in your community. 2. Interview the children in your classroom to learn about their technology experiences. Give each child a disposable camera to take home and take 10 pictures of what they think is technology in their homes. Code the pictures into categories to determine how your children understand technology.

Reflect 1. The statement “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it” may help you think about how technology becomes a part of culture. What types of technology have become parts of modern community in your lifetime? 2. How does early use of technology in the home influence learning? Think about your personal use of technology and experiences you and your family have had with technology use. How have these impacted your family? 3. This chapter provides research on several “area of concern” associated with early learning and technology. How does this information support or conflict with your thinking about technology prior to reading this chapter? 4. Does technology support your thinking about child development and learning? Why or why not?

Practice 1. One particularly unique aspect of technology was the degree to which parents felt

empowered to actively participate in their children’s learning. How can you use this information to develop parent engagement in your classroom? Make a list of activities that will strengthen your parent involvement through technology. 2. This chapter presents educators with guidelines for selecting and incorporating developmentally appropriate software within the early learning environment. Work with your colleagues to identify how you can implement these guidelines in your school. 3. How can you, as a professional, integrate the informal experiences of children with technology into your learning environment to support learning? 4. What the implications for early development and learning are through exposure to technology? How could these implications inform your practice?

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Reingold, H. (2006). The pedagogy of civic participation. In New Media Consortium Second Life Symposium on Impact of Digital Learning. Symposium conducted at the meeting of New Media Consortium, NMC Campus in Second Life. NMC (Producer). [Audio Podcast]. Retrieved from www.nmc.org/ podcast/ pedagogy-civicparticipation Rideout, V. J., Foehr, U. G., & Roberts, D. F. (2010). Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18- year olds (pp. 1–82). Kaiser Family Foundation. Rideout, V. J., & Hamel, E. (2006). The media family: Electronic media in the lives of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and their parents. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved fromhttp://www. kff.org/ entmedia/upload/ 7500.pdf Rideout, V. J., Vandewater, E. A., & Wartella, E. A. (2003). Zero to six: Electronic media in the lives of infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved fromhttp://www. kff.org/ entmedia/upload/ Zero-to-Six-ElectronicMedia-in-the-Lives-of- Infants-Toddlers-andPreschoolers-PDF.pdf Ritchie, S., Maxwell, K. L., & Bredekamp, S. (2009). Rethinking early schooling: Using developmental science to transform children’s early school experiences. In Barbarin, O. A., & Wasik, B. H. (Eds.), Handbook of child development and early education: Research to practice (pp. 14–37). New York, NY: Guilford. Roberts, D. F., & Foehr, U. G. (2008). Trends in media use. The Future of Children, 18(1), 11–37. doi:10.1353/foc.0.0000 Roberts, J., Jurgens, J., & Burchinal, M. (2005). The role of home literacy practices in preschool children’s language and emergent literacy skills. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research: JSLHR, 48, 345–359. doi:10.1044/10924388(2005/024)

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Chapter 3

Children’s Power for Learning in the Age of Technology Julie McLeod University of North Texas, USA Lin Lin University of North Texas, USA Sheri Vasinda Texas A&M University – Commerce, USA

ABSTRACT This chapter situates discussions of children’s power for learning in the context of new media and technology. We assert that for learning to take place, children must exert their own power and take initiatives in their learning; yet, the current power structure of classrooms inhibits children from exerting their power and motivation for learning. Tracing the seminal works on power, we provide examples of children’s power in learning and argue for a power structure transformation necessary in a technologyrich classroom of the twenty-first century.

INTRODUCTION A class of third and fourth graders engages in a lively discussion on food chains, what eats what, and how decomposers break down dead matter, when the discussion turns to composting plant waste. “Oh yeah, we compost in RuneScape so our veggies will grow better!” Faran chimes in. Several other boys enthusiastically discuss plant

matter they have virtually composted as well as other quest related tasks they encounter in this popular online game. The depth of discussion on this ecological process is amazing. There is a hefty amount of text these third and fourth graders willingly read to improve their play of this game. Along the way they are determining their own purpose for reading, encountering content specific vocabulary such as: vegetation, produce, organic, and rotting; academic vocabulary such as: treated,

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-059-0.ch003

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yield, increase, and interacting with one another online in a cooperative manner. What motivates these young children to engage in the traditional literacy demands required by school on their own time? What motivates them to master a video game, engage in online play, or seek information on a topic that sparks their interest or curiosity? In synthesizing an abundance of research on motivation, Daniel Pink (2009) attributes this kind of motivation as the boys’ desire to direct their own life, to improve their skill at the game, and to be a part of a large game playing group. According Pink (2009), motivation comes not from the old behaviorist carrot and stick model of rewards and punishments; instead, motivation comes from three factors: autonomy (the ability to direct our own lives), mastery (the urge to get increasingly better at something that matters), and purpose (the desire for what we do to be in the service of a larger purpose). Clearly, within these descriptors of motivation lies a sense of power. One achieves a sense of power when one is confident and capable of achieving his or her goal autonomously and meaningfully. Our schools are on the cusp of change. As the Industrial Age gives way to the Digital Age, schools find themselves clinging to an outdated system that no longer reflects the needs of today’s citizenship, life-style or work force. The societal landscape of the Industrial Age produced the factory model of schooling. Businesses needed workers, schools provided them. Those who did not go on to college were trained to respond to bells, be on time, and do boring repetitive work. In the factory model of schooling, students are viewed as products; teachers, in turn, take on the role of factory technicians making the additions and adjustments to their products required during their year (Schlechty, 1990). There is little power in being a product - or a factory technician. The factory jobs of the past have been automated. Even jobs that require a certain knowledge skill set, such as tax preparation, customer service,

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or information systems support can be outsourced to less expensive labor forces in any place on the globe with Internet access. As we struggle through this transition period of letting go of old models without yet knowing how the new model should look (McLeod & Vasinda, 2009b), educators sense the power structures of old begin to blur and the change as our students have knowledge and skills that many times surpass our own in areas of technology usage. Children remind us how to use our Interactive White boards, how to animate a Power Point, or how to join a social networking group. They are eager to teach us how to navigate digital worlds. They are in a technology world, a context that makes the discussions of the focus of this chapter, children’s power for their own learning important, even urgent.

Objectives After reading this chapter the reader will develop an awareness of how the perception of power structures in early childhood classrooms is shifting due to the influence of technology. The reader will be able to reflect on the instructional environment and interactions in their classrooms as influenced by the power roles of children and teachers. The reader will be able to better understand: • • • •

Context of learning Power structures in schools Power of technology Information power

BACKGROUND: THE IMPORTANCE OF NEW MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY BEING THE CONTEXT The importance of a context has been highlighted in many historical events. History is replete with great ideas that, because of lack of the right technology, could not come to fruition. The thinking was in place long before another, in a different

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time, could see the idea to its successful intent. Da Vinci, for instance, designed machines capable of flight but could not build them because the technology and societal infrastructure of the day was not available (Papert, 1993). The Wright brothers succeeded where Da Vinci fell short, not because they were so much smarter, but because of their context. They had the technology and the societal infrastructure to build the first airplane. In a similar way, because of their context, the preprimary schools of Reggio Emilia in Italy have succeeded in embracing the educational philosophies of John Dewey when we in America are still under the influence of Thorndike’s mechanistic view of quantifying the educational experience and outcomes (Gibboney, 2006). In the aftermath of the devastation and rubble of World War II, a group of parents who understood the social change in which their community had undergone wanted something better for their children (Gandini, 2002; Palestis, 1994). The landscape of war and resistance to fascist leadership was the context and catalyst for change and the desire to create a more just world that was free from oppression (Barazzoni, 2000). This Italian region’s history of solidarity and cooperation made it possible for these parents, and later a group of teachers with the guidance of Loris Malaguzzi, to create what have been referred to as the best and most innovative preschools in the world (Newsweek, 1991). Their foundational focus is the image of the child as a protagonist of their own learning. Children are seen as full of potential and capable of constructing their own learning, not in isolation, but in relationship with the family, other children, the school and the wider society. Teachers and children work together as partners in the process of learning and document their work together. The practices of Reggio Emilia provide a landscape for continuous research, analysis, reflection and action that results in the formulation of new theories, hypotheses, ideas and strategies about learning and teaching (Gandini, 2002).

Cognitive scientists and educational researchers have long noted that the context in which learning takes place is critical (Godden & Baddeley, 1975). John Dewey (1997) advocated that children’s educational experience needs to be connected to their daily experiences. Lave and Wenger (1991) suggested that all learning is contextual and situated in a social and physical environment. Situated learning emphasizes that the ongoing processes in which one is involved, for instance, the surroundings and social network of others doing the same thing, change the capacity for learning. Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989) stated that “the ways schools use dictionaries or math formulae, or historical analyses, are very different from the ways practitioners use them.” Consequently, students often do not see connections between learning in school and their real life situations, and lose interest in what they study in school. The context today includes the ubiquitous nature of technology in our postmodern or knowledge-based society, and the continuing ease of use have opened many possibilities for learning and collaboration as well as new challenges. One facet of postmodern society and thinking is characterized by multiple voices or alternative perspectives emerging with the rapid development of new media and social networks. Technological platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and Wikis have made it easy for the general public (not just authorities or celebrities) to make their voices heard and to impact public opinions and policy changes. Many of these voices are from those of underrepresented cultures, ethnicities and genders (Slattery, 1995), to which we will add the culture of youth, more specifically young children. Living in a world of technology, new media and technology are children’s social and physical environments and are their daily experiences. Because of new media, the learning environments designed for children by educational theorists including Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky are now able to take flight. However, standing in the

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way are archaic classroom power structures that do not fit into our twenty-first century context. Therefore, in this chapter, we will begin our discussions with the current power structures in school settings, followed by understanding power through the historical and philosophical lens. Then, we will look to the power structures necessary in a technology-rich classroom of the twenty-first century.

Power and Power Structure in School Settings When power is considered in a school setting, it is typically with phrases such as “empowering children.” But the term “empower” entails giving power. In other words, just using the word empower connotes that all power resides in the adults and that it is at the adults’ discretion whether or not the power is shared with the children. It further implies that power is something that can be given away. In this chapter, we will challenge these held beliefs. Currently, educators are grappling with how to use the technology their students value, are comfortable, adept and unafraid to experiment with and use as well as keeping current with technology’s continuous invention and evolution. Phil Schlechty (2009) describes what he calls the “digital imperative” as follows: The revolution created by the application of digital technologies to the organization, management, processing, and presentation of information, images, data, and all manner of human expression cannot be appreciated as long as these technologies are viewed as tools for instructors. What is most powerful about them is that they place instruction under the direct control of the person being instructed: the learner. In the digital world, the learner, not the instructor, is in charge of what will be learned, as well as how and when that learning will occur.

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In his work with teachers, Schlechty (2009) found that teachers recognize that technology provides a platform for students to take a more active role in the classroom and it becomes, as one teacher quoted, “a shared space where teachers and students learn together and from each other” (Schlechty, 2009). He also found that more commonly, teachers undervalue the potential of technology as a learning tool and that it is often regarded as something to which needs to be controlled. Clearly, power structures are deeply ingrained in schools. Therefore, it is important to begin this chapter with an understanding of power: what it is, what is embedded in the power, what are outcomes derived from power, and why it is relevant and urgent to discuss power issues in the context of technology.

The Definition and Nature of Power in the Context of New Media and Technology Cartwright (1959) noted years ago that a consistent definition of power eluded the field and the ensuing fifty years has not substantially changed that fact. Cartwright himself used a mathematical formula to depict power as the force an agent can use to influence and the resistance of that influence by a target. Yukl (2006, p. 146) similarly defines power as the “capacity of one party (the agent) to influence another party (the target).” These definitions seem to equate power with a type of domination of one person over another person. Foucault (1980), however, moves beyond these domination-themed definitions and views power as a productive network in society. He identifies power in relations of any kind, such as family, work or school. This is a view of power as socially negotiated rather than dictated. Barnes (1988) identifies power as socially negotiated as well. For Barnes, social power is akin to mechanical power in that it is a capacity. While mechanical

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power is a capacity for work, social power is the capacity for action in society. It is this view of social power as the capacity for action which is especially compelling, particularly because technology has enabled even very young children to take action in society in ways that are important, public and inconceivable without the technology. Tapscott and Williams (2006) posit that for the first time in history, children are experts in something that is truly important in the adult world. Because children have these life experiences as a valued, contributing and important member of a society, they taste social power in a way that we did not know at their age. It has also expanded the number and types of societies available to children. For example, even young children can join societies such as Webkinz World or Club Penguin, the virtual worlds for kids. In virtual worlds, societies evolve in which children have the capacity to act online, and with some worlds, the societies are not limited online so the capacity to act in the virtual society extends to the physical world as well. This experience leaves an aftertaste that children find hard to set aside in other parts of their lives. Thus, for this chapter, our definition of power will be closely akin to both Foucault’s and Barnes’, that is, power is productive, sometimes consensual, capacity for action in society. To dig more deeply into the concept of power, Parsons (1963) used an economic metaphor, money, to describe the nature of power and how it is created by society. Just as money is a circulating medium, power circulates through society. Further, like money, power is a symbolic abstraction. Parsons (1963) explained that while in earlier times, coins were made of a metal with an independent value of its own; convenience brought about paper money which then symbolized the metal that represented the money’s value. Of course now, the representational metal is not used and paper money has become fully abstract and separate from the metal that once gave it its value. It has value in its own right. Members of society may

use a symbolic instrument to make obligations to others and to fulfill those obligations. Similarly, in society powerful people have the capacity to call upon obligations and secure satisfaction of that obligation. It is this capacity to act in society that is at the heart of our definition of power. Interestingly, Freire (1970) wrote extensively about power structures and education after his experience helping people in Brazil to become literate. He also used an economic metaphor to describe the traditional power structures specific to education. In Freire’s view, teachers make “deposits” of knowledge to students. The students’ role is limited to receiving the deposits, memorizing the information and repeating it to the teacher when asked. Indeed, Freire argued that this education system limits the “scope of action (the authors’ emphasis) allowed to the students” (Freire, 1970, p. 72). Since the capacity to act is the definition of power, Freire’s banking metaphor for education in which students’ action is limited highlights a fundamental contradiction for twenty-first century educators - how do students’ new conceptualization of their own capacities for action (i.e., power) in their technological worlds synchronize with an educational system that attempts to limit their actions? An important consideration in answering this question can come from extending Parsons’ (1963) economic metaphor for power. Banks hold deposits for customers. While these customers retain the right to access their funds at any time, the bank also has the right to use a portion of the funds to lend to other customers for a fee. Thus, at any time, two people can have access to the same funds, essentially doubling the economic value of those funds. Power is similar in that leaders may take action and make obligations in support of a particular group’s goals without draining any resources. In other words, power is not a zerosum. An individual’s increased power does not have to come at the expense of another person’s power. Indeed, society regularly produces power to satisfy needs, desires and goals.

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With this concept of power as something that can be expandable and generated, educators can begin to conceive of a classroom with the necessary power structures for twenty-first century teaching and learning: celebrating and encouraging children’s power in their learning does not reduce the teacher’s or school’s power to help children learn. Because of the twenty-first century children’s push to move their capacity to act into the classroom, it is important for educators to understand power. By doing so, it becomes possible to envision a style of teaching that honors childrens’ power while still accomplishing the established learning goals.

The Elements and Outcomes of Power and its Importance for Children’s Learning in the Age of New Media and Technology McLeod and Lin (2010) traced the discussions of power by seminal and contemporary thinkers including French and Raven (1959), Weber (1968), Freire (1970) and Yukl (2006), and summarized eight separate types of power: legitimate power, reward power, coercive power, referent power, expert power, information power, ecological power, and power over oneself, as shown in the Figure 1. Legitimate power occurs when an agent has formal or cultural authority over a target. Adultchild relationships in schools are governed by cultural norms that allow teachers to have legitimate power. Referent power occurs when the target seeks the approval of the agent or has strong feelings of loyalty or admiration. The agent can influence the target because the target seeks to please the agent. For example, when students struggle to be accepted by their teachers or peers, referent power is at work. Reward power is an agent’s ability to use rewards to influence the target and gain compliance. Compliance is not guaranteed with reward power as the target will continuously evaluate the probability of receiving the reward and whether the reward is worth the

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Figure 1. Typology of power

agent’s compliance. Many teachers use reward power in the classroom for students who follow the classroom rules. Coercive power uses threats or punishments for noncompliance and is typically considered an opposite to reward power. Traditional teachers use coercive power when they take away a privilege or threaten a failing grade. Expert power occurs when an agent has specific knowledge or skills, particularly unique knowledge and skills. Many times, a target wants advice from another and thus can be influenced via expert power. Teachers traditionally are viewed as having expert power. In twenty-first century classrooms, expert power can also come from students. Information power is the control over information. In schools, administrators hold information power. Teachers can also hold information power over students. Ecological power is control over the physical environment or technology. Teachers have power over the physical layout of a classroom. Technology lab managers in a school might control teachers’ and students’ access to the computer lab. Power over oneself is that which one exerts over oneself. It is that internal locus of control. In a classroom, ultimately it is students who choose whether they learn a particular lesson. Schlechty (2002) believes students should

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be viewed as volunteers in the classroom even when their attendance is compulsory. By doing so, teachers recognize that even when students are present, they must choose to engage and learn. As shown in Figure 1, McLeod and Lin (2010) attempted to juxtapose the elements of the typology so that these elements opposite each other presented themselves as opposite ends of a spectrum or continuum. For instance, power over oneself which can be considered a microcosm of power is juxtaposed against ecological power which can be exerted at a much broader scale. Reward power which typically entails something that is given to another is juxtaposed against coercive power which typically entails something that is taken away from someone. The typologies offered above focus on the source of the power that stems from the agent. This is of course useful in furthering our definition of power, but equally as useful is a discussion of the outcome of the attempts at power, which focuses more on the target than on the agent of power. While Barnes (1988) warns that power should not be measured or conceptualized at the outcome of the action, certainly any study of power should include an evaluation of the result of the power attempt, or the outcome. Figure 2 depicts the outcomes of power, once again derived from seminal and contemporary thinkers such as Yukl (2006) and Freire (1970) and discussed in detail in McLeod and Lin (2010): In Figure 2, Commitment involves the target accepting the power attempt and internalizing a change in behavior, which can be long lasting. Commitment typically results from referent or expert power. Compliance describes a situation in which the target performs as requested but with minimal effort and no internalized change. Resistance occurs when the target actively avoids and sometimes even sabotages the power attempt. On the contrary, liberation occurs as oppressed people liberate themselves through education.

Figure 2. Outcome of power

Liberation is viewed as a jointly negotiated reality between the agent and the target. Ideally in school settings, teachers hope to see commitment and liberation in their student’s learning and try their best to prevent students from resisting or reluctantly complying to what’s been taught at schools. Referring back to the source of the power that stems from the agent, we can see that the first two pairs of powers, legitimate and referent, reward and coercive powers, are prevalent and dominant in our old and current classroom structures. They present a top-down structure of an educational system that uses external forces or incentives to push students to learn. These powers may work sometimes, but often they do not. It is the second two pairs of powers, namely, expert and information, ecological and power over oneself that are changing in the context of technology. These four powers reside in children’s daily experiences and are particularly relevant in our twenty-first century classrooms. The transformational changes of these four powers in classroom settings, we believe, will bring true power to students’ learning and to their motivation for learning. Ultimately, these powers will generate in our children the two ideal outcomes of power: liberation and commitment for their own learning.

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Children’s Power in the Technological World The following two scenarios are examples of how the power of children enhances learning in a sixth grade classroom. The technology used has changed the interactions of the class and the ownership of the information in a manner that bases the learning in the context of the digital world.

Scenario 1: Folders of Wisdom and Knowledge The room was buzzing. Each student had a laptop and was working diligently, but not independently. Many times students leaned over to their neighbors to ask about a problem. When their neighbor could not help, the students looked around for the teacher and called the teacher over to help. “Yes!” called one student after a period of working time had elapsed. He had completed the work and was proud of all he had accomplished. Other students called out to him to come help them, but he played coy with them, telling them that they could do it themselves. In this classroom, students were working on a math task that had just been digitized for the first time. During the previous year, the students in this math classroom struggled to organize all their mathematical knowledge because mathematics tends to be taught in small chunks without any overarching structure. Understanding that one significant difference in the way experts and novices think is in the organization of their knowledge (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000), the teacher began helping students organizing their knowledge by creating folders with pockets for the main concepts. These pockets were then stuffed over time with envelopes which represented a lower level concept and then with example questions and scenarios inside the envelopes. Students named these folders their Folders of Wisdom and Knowledge.

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In the original way the folders were conceived, the example questions and scenarios were printed on index cards so that students could sort the cards into the appropriate envelope. This had been a group activity so that there was a check for students’ thinking. Students would read the card and spend a few minutes discerning in which envelope they felt the card would best fit. Then, the teacher would ask for volunteers to share their thinking. Once the decision was made regarding where the card would best fit, the class stuffed the envelope and moved on together to the next card. This was a long and laborious process, although student feedback and their conceptual and organizational knowledge showed that it truly helped them. Now that each student had access to a laptop in her class, the teacher decided to try to automate the sorting process. She had found during the course of the year that students responded well to technology-rich work because of its individual pacing and immediate feedback. So, she created a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and copied and pasted the questions and scenarios into the spreadsheet. She then added a drop-down menu along with some rudimentary logic to inform students if they discerned the proper concept that the scenario was addressing. When students finished the virtual sorting work, she asked for feedback about the new digital method of sorting. Three themes emerged from this brief reflection time. First, students noted that they actually had to think. One student said, “It makes you actually think.” This was certainly a surprise because the work was the same in each case as when the students used the paper folders and index cards. However, in the manual sorting task, this student was likely waiting quietly until others offered their suggestions and then just placed the card in the appropriate envelope. This behavior would likely fit into Schlechty’s (2002) ritual compliance category in which students expend only enough energy to avoid negative consequences. These students are not fully engaged in the task and do not learn at deep levels. This comment also

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reminds educators that students are volunteers in our classroom (Schlechty, 2002), with the power to decide whether or not to engage in the learning. The second theme that emerged was that students liked the work better simply because it was “on the computer.” They were very clear and resounding that any work is better when they can complete that work electronically. The third theme that emerged was that they liked the virtual sorting better because each student could choose their own pace and identify when they needed to seek help. One student noted that he liked it better because it “went faster.” Several students noted that the speed was much more to their liking, noting that “you get the answer quicker.” Interestingly, this was not a digital activity in which students were completely immersed in a virtual world. It did not require a significant amount of programming or technological knowledge. But, this simple activity allowed students to negotiate their own learning, become more literate in their mathematical knowledge and certainly were seeking out experts, first their peers and then the teacher. The results of the feedback are discussed through the lens of children’s power throughout the remainder of the chapter.

Scenario 2: Mathcasts “I don’t like having to show my work!” “It’s too much writing!” “I think UPS-check is just a way for teachers to torture us!” These were the statements from the students at the beginning of the school year during reflective interviews. The students were reflecting on a mathematical process known as UPS-check, which stands for Understand, Plan, Solve and Check. This process is encouraged via state mathematics standards and is implemented beginning in Kindergarten in the school district. In the process, teachers use mathematical word problems and ask students to divide their paper into four equal parts. In each section, students work one part of the UPS-check process. Clearly, students saw little value in the process and they

noted that they had to expend considerable energy to complete it. As adults, we understand that this way of thinking is important in many different realms. Yet, students must come to their own understanding of the value in this thinking process if they are to embrace it and use it. Fast forward to the middle of the school year when we started using digital pens and special notebooks that would record words and pen strokes for the first time. These recordings could then be played back immediately and/or uploaded online creating a movie that could be embedded into websites or blog posts. These recordings were called Mathcasts (McLeod & Vasinda, 2009b). Students were partnered and given a choice of word problems to solve. One partner was the solver and the other partner was the interviewer. The interviewer used a protocol to ask questions of the solver and assisted as necessary in the problem solving process. The interview protocol followed the same questions that students had used for years to guide their thinking through the UPS-check process. Once a problem was solved and recorded, the partners switched roles. A group reflective interview was conducted after this first Mathcast was completed. One student noted, “I like showing the work.” Another student said, “I like putting the important things before solving the question.” A third student expressed that he liked “showing how we know the answer is correct.” Interestingly, these students expressed that their favorite aspects of the Mathcast were the same aspects that they disliked about UPS-check in our first reflective interview. While some of the difference might have originated from work we did throughout the first semester which invited students to find their own meaning in the UPS-check process, we found that this means of recording words and writing resonated with students as more authentic than the written word alone (McLeod & Vasinda, 2009a). During this process, students were co-creating knowledge by recording Mathcasts that were posted online for others to view and they clearly

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identified the difference between this work and the work on paper. Another theme that emerged from the interview data was that students could identify their own mistakes by listening to their thinking or by discussing with their partner. In this way, students were negotiating their own learning while becoming even more literate in the UPS-check process. Indeed, Vygotsky (1986) posits that learners mediate their understanding through discussion and that conversation with others becomes internalized into private speech and then the thought process becomes automated. In both scenarios, students had different reactions towards their learning process when using digital technologies as compared to using the traditional tools. Obviously, situating their learning in their own context – the technological world, has played a role in their excitement for learning. Yet, something else, namely, students’ power, has also played an important role in the process. In the following, we will discuss the ecological, expert, information, and power over oneself that the students exhibited in the two scenarios.

Children’s Ecological Power Ecological power is control over the physical environment or technology. Children today are the most technology savvy of any generation. A recent report by Kaiser Family Foundation found that 8-18 year olds in the U.S. spent 7.38 hours on media daily, and that these young people packed a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of content media into 7.38 hours of media use (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010). In fact, children spend more time with media than they do with parents, teachers, physical activities, and homework combined. During their work on virtual sorting for their Folders of Wisdom and Knowledge, students strongly communicated that any work is better if it is on the computer. In this statement, students were clearly identifying their ecological power within the technological context. When they had

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control over their environment, they felt more deeply connected with their work. To these students, technology-rich learning was a natural way to feel the control over their environment. Further, students enjoyed the work more because they could work at their own pace, again citing ecological power as an impetus for their deep engagement. The students who created Mathcasts also recognized their ecological power. For these students, the UPS-check process was “torture” when it was completed using a pencil and paper. However, when these same students completed the UPS-check process using the digital pens, they felt drastically different about the process. So different that they noted how much they enjoyed the exact same aspects of the process with which they had expressed disdain earlier in the year. New technologies have become ubiquitous in the lives of young children. Technology, which can be anything from a pencil to a phone to a computer, is not simply a tool in terms of hardware or software for children who use it. Rather, it is meaningful, both for those who create with it and for those who use it. For children living in the technological world, the boundary between creation and consumption has become blurry. Technology creation and consumption are integrated in their lives, their friendships, and their sense of what is important to them.

Children’s Expert Power Along with children’s ecological power over technology comes their expert power. Expert power refers to specific knowledge or skills. Children are at the front of technological knowledge and skills. Technology presents a landscape of possibilities and power in which children can and do willingly participate unlike any landscape of the past. They pretend and play, research and report, consume and create on virtual platforms where they are comfortable, proficient and engaged. They have been called “digital natives” (Prensky, 2001) as they have grown up in a world in which much is

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possible. Because of their fearless tinkering with technology, they often mentor adults in navigating technological media and applications. Children’s expert power was observed during their virtual sorting work on their Folders of Wisdom and Knowledge. Students were working both independently and collaboratively seamlessly. When they were unsure, they typically sought help from their neighbor. Sometimes they also sought help from their classmate across the room, making for a lively sounding classroom! Finally, they sought help from the teacher. This was not a process directed by the teacher, but was naturally occurring among students. Similarly during Mathcasts, students noted that they appreciated the partner discussion and the interview questions so that they could find their own mistakes. Once again, students naturally asked peers for help. When the pair could not decide how to proceed, the teacher was called over for assistance. These examples demonstrate students’ innate ability to identify experts and seek assistance. This is a naturally occurring process for children in their worlds outside of school. For example, children playing a game such as Sonic the Hedgehog first exercise their power to act in the world. When they find difficulty, they then seek assistance. This assistance can come from in game characters or from elaborate societies of cheats and help sites online. Vygotsky (1978)’s work bears relevance, especially his notion of the zone of proximal development (ZPD), or the difference between one’s actual and potential levels of cognitive development. ZPD can be achieved when children are collaborating and achieving the same goals together. In a technological world, a child can find someone who is just a few steps ahead in learning how to deal with the environment, someone who still speaks the same language and makes the same mistakes, but at the same time, someone who has achieved a few of the same things that he or she wants to achieve. Since they can communicate most of it rather easily because of technology, it becomes a naturally occurring process to attempt action,

seek assistance and learn. On the other hand, it is equally important to be able to turn around and find someone a little behind, because this time, the child gets an opportunity to articulate the achievement by explaining and re-explaining and making it clear to someone who is asking him or her. In Rogoff’s (1990, p. 16)’s words: “Children seek, structure, and even demand the assistance of those around them in learning how to solve problems of all kinds. They actively observe social activities, participating as they can.”

Children’s Information Power Information power is control over information. Researchers have known for years that children can use technology to obtain information at their finger tips (Perkins, 1985). Certainly this access to information is a type of information power. However, this is still information to which others also have access. Children now know that information power is more intense if they are the ones creating the information or content and then deciding how and when to share that information. During virtual sorting work on their folders of wisdom and knowledge students demonstrated their sensitivity to information power in a unique way. If a student was able to figure out a question or scenario before his or her neighbor, he/she would have information power. Because of this, students did not wait idly for others to do the thinking; instead, they actively engaged in the thinking themselves. Further, the students also noted that they appreciated moving at their own pace. This individualized pacing increased some students’ information power because they had already worked through a question and could be a more capable other for their neighbor (Vygotsky, 1978). During the Mathcasts, students began finding value in the UPS-check thinking process because they were co-creating knowledge that would be available to others online. Indeed, students were creating information and deciding

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when and how to share that information, which is the essence of information power. Gee (2003) makes a strong case for the strength of the learning experiences in video games and identified 36 learning principles found in good video games. Without using the terminology of information power, two of Gee’s principles speak to this type of power. One of the principles is the Dispersed Principle, meaning that learners share knowledge outside the game. Another principle is the Insider Principle in which the player is an insider, a teacher and a producer. Both of these principles are seen in our scenarios, particularly in the Mathcast scenario where students were creating a video of their thinking to share online. Gee believes that the learning principles in video games offer educators a glimpse of the types of experiences available to students outside the classroom and his text includes a plea for educators to move children’s classroom experiences closer to their game-play experiences.

Children’s Power Over Themselves Sometimes called intrinsic motivation or internal locus of control, the essence of power over oneself is that students are choosing to engage in the hard work of learning. When learning becomes less other directed and more self directed and more self directed, students take more ownership of the process and the content (Knowles, 1975). Students demonstrated their power over themselves in several ways. During their folders of wisdom and knowledge work, students appreciated the fact that the work was completed digitally and that each student had a laptop to complete the work. These two aspects combined demonstrate an internal locus of control that is important for students if they are to take ownership of their learning. When working on Mathcasts, the students liked identifying and correcting their own mistakes, sometimes by listening to their own thinking via the digital pen technology and sometimes in collaboration with their partner. Certainly, rework is a difficult

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part of the learning in school. From editing a piece of writing to checking the work on a math problem, students resist the rework because they see it as monotonous. In their opinion, they have done the work once, why should they do it again? By using the digital pens and listening to their own thinking, students found their own power over their work and their learning. Equipped with this power, students naturally enjoyed the typically painstaking process of rework.

FUTURE TRENDS: LIBERATION AND COMMITMENT AS OUTCOMES OF CELEBRATING CHILDREN’S POWER The world is rapidly changing with new media and technology. Children are developing knowledge and expertise in the technological world, but schools continue to operate in a way that fails to leverage the technological changes that increasingly influence children’s lives (Squire & Jan, 2007). Classrooms remain dominated by printbased materials produced by teacher-centered pedagogy, where students are positioned as passive and powerless receivers. Because of the drastic change of our technological landscape, we should consider the transformation of power structures in classrooms: to do something new that has never been done (Schlechty, 2009). When the landscape changed for the people of Reggio Emilia, they transformed their schools to fit their vision of something new they wanted for their children. Recently Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education and long-time supporter of the standards and accountability movement, has changed her position in regard to privatization and charter schools, standardized testing, and punitive accountability. She has now come to believe, the result of over forty years of research, that the bottom line business model put into place by policy makers has grievously harmed our educational system (Ravitch, 2010). Maybe the time is right to turn away from

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the mechanistic thinking of Thorndike and create the landscape of high quality experiences of Dewey. The landscape of the Digital Age could be the catalyst that can place the children at the center of their own learning experiences. In Gee’s (2003) analysis of good learning in video games, he identified the Probing Principle. This principle situates learning as a cycle of actions, including probing the world, reflecting on the action, and forming hypotheses that are then tested as the cycle begins again. Gee’s Probing Principle mirrors Freire’s (1970) concept of praxis which is also a process of action and reflection. Freire’s concept of praxis, however, predates video games. And, importantly, praxis is the process that Freire contends leads to liberation. Certainly, the teacher and students involved in our scenarios experienced liberation. They discerned a new reality in which mathematics is connected to the world, lived and embodied through action. When children experience school learning in a way that is congruent with their out-of-school learning, they respond with deep commitment. Further, these new power dynamics allow both the students and the teacher to discern a new reality, demonstrating liberation (Freire, 1970). Importantly, Freire (1970) reminds us that when oppressed people experience liberation, they do so not only for their own benefit, but also for the benefit of the oppressors. Through liberation, both oppressors and the oppressed become fully human. Children can already taste this reality in their worlds outside of school. It is now time to move the feast of liberation into the important realm of school learning.

CONCLUSION Dewey (2001) and Vygotsky (1978) contend that learning is a social process. Power is a social dynamic. Studying knowledge, cognition and learning is studying social theory (Barnes, 1988). Thus, this evaluation of classroom power

dynamics in today’s society is a worthy effort. Children nowadays experience ecological power, expert power, information power, and power over oneself in their daily life of new media and technology. These powers afford children the natural motivation for learning. Therefore, these powers should be incorporated into the classroom and become the dominant forms of interactions in the classroom of the twenty-first century. Indeed, Bennis (2003) contends that today’s leaders must understand that power now follows ideas rather than position and we believe that this is true for young people as well. Further, it is these types of power that are involved in the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) as more capable others assist learners. With such a classroom power transformation, we can expect that our children will present the outcomes of power that we as educators hope to realize: their commitment and liberation for their own learning.

Reflecting on Children’s Power for Learning in the Age of Technology This section gives you some questions and activities to help you think about how you can use some of the ideas from this chapter in your work.

Research 1. In your classroom observe which learning enables children to demonstrate their ecological power, expert power, information power or power over oneself to determine if the ideas in this chapter are supported. Video children as they work in different learning centers including one where an adult dictates the steps of an activity and one where children initiate actions. Keep a tally of how many and how long children participate in each type of activity when given free choice. 2. Place a digital camera, cell phone and PDA in a learning center without specifying what they are or how to use them. Video the

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interactions of children with these devices. Analyze how the children interact with these.

Reflect 1. Living in a world of technology, new media and technology are children’s social and physical environments and are their daily experiences. What does this statement imply for your classroom environment? 2. Schools continue to operate in a way that fails to leverage the technological changes that increasingly influence children’s lives (Squire & Jan 2007). Prepare a concept map of your educational environment which includes technology that children use in their daily lives and in your classroom. 3. Living in a world of technology, new media and technology are children’s social and physical environments and are their daily experiences. What actions have you observed your children doing that support this statement? 4. As the industrial age gives way to the digital age think about your beliefs about learning. Are you still approaching teaching like the “banking system” of learning? How do your views of learning inhibit or support technology in your classroom? 5. What aspects of Reggio Emlio are incorporated into your classroom ? Why would you want to use his approach in relation to technology?

Practice 1. Students respond well to technology rich work because of its individual pacing and immediate feedback. How will you use this idea in your classroom to give children the opportunity to expand their learning?

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2. In twenty-first century classrooms, expert power can also come from students. How will this idea inform your practice? Develop a list of ways you will allow children to explore their power. One achieves a sense of power when one is confident and capable of achieving his or her goal autonomously and meaningfully. Identify what activities you use in your classroom that supports autonomy of children. Develop more ways you can provide an environment to support this through technology.

REFERENCES Barazzoni, R. (2000). Brick by brick [ Aprile” people’s nursery school of Villa Cella. Reggio, Emilia, Italy: Reggio Children.]. Histoire (Paris), XXV. Barnes, B. (1988). The nature of power. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Bennis, W. (2003). On becoming a leader. New York, NY: Basic Books. Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Research, 18, 32–42. Dewey, J. (1997). How we think. Mineola, NY: Dover. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977 (Gordon, C., Ed.). London, UK: Harvester. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum.

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French, J., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In Cartwright, D. (Ed.), Studies in social power (pp. 150–167). Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan. Gandini, L. (2002). The story and foundation of the Reggio Emilia approach. In V. R. Fu, A. J. Stremmel, & L. T. Hill (Eds.) (2002). Teaching and learning: Collaborative exploration of the Reggio Emilia approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall. Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, NY: Palgrave McMillan. Gibboney, R. (2006). Intelligence by design: Thorndike versus Dewey. Phi Delta Kappan, 88(2), 170–178. Godden, D. R., & Baddeley, A. D. (1975). Context-dependent memory in two natural environments: On land and underwater. The British Journal of Psychology, 66(3), 325–331. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1975.tb01468.x Knowles, M. (1975). Self-directed learning: A guide for learners and teachers. New York, NY: Association Press. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. McLeod, J., & Lin, L. (2010). A child’s power in game-play. Computers & Education, 54, 517 527. McLeod, J., & Vasinda, S. (2009a). Electronic portfolios: Perspectives of students, teachers and parents. Education and Information Technologies, 14, 29–38. doi:10.1007/s10639-008-9077-5 McLeod, J., & Vasinda, S. (2009b). Web 2.0 affordances for literacies: Using technology as pedagogically strong scaffolds for learning. In Kidd, T., & Chen, I. (Eds.), Wired for learning: An educator’s guide to Web 2.0. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Newsweek. (1991, December 2). The 10 best schools in the world and what we can learn from them, (pp. 50-59). Palestis, E. (1994). Lessons from Reggio Emilia. Principal, 73(5), 16–18. Papert, S. (1993). The children’s machine: Rethinking school in the age of the computer. New York, NY: Basic Books. Parsons, T. (1963). On the concept of political power. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society of the American Philosophical Society, 107, 232–258. Perkins, D. N. (1985). The fingertip effect: How information-processing technology shapesthinking. Educational Researcher, 14, 11–17. Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. New York, NY: Riverhead. Prensky, M. (2001). Digital game-based learning. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Ravitch, D. (2010). The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education. New York, NY: Basic Books. Rideout, V. J., Foehr, U. G., & Roberts, D. F. (2010). Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8to 18 year-olds. Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation. Schlechty, P. (1990). Schools for the twenty-first century: Leadership imperatives for educational reform. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Schlechty, P. (2002). Working on the work: An action plan for teacher, principals and superintendents. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Schlechty, P. (2009). Leading for learning: How to transform schools into learning organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

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Slattery, P. (1995). Curriculum development in the postmodern era. New York, NY: Garland.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2006). Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything. Portfolio Hardcover.

Weber, M. (1968). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. New York, NY: Bedminster.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Yukl, G. (2006). Leadership in organizations (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

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Chapter 4

Technology in Three American Preschools: Technological Influences of Ideology and Social Class Allison S. Henward Arizona State University & University of Memphis, USA

ABSTRACT This chapter explores the marriage of popular culture images, media and technology and the manner in which these are implemented in preschool settings. Discussing parents’ choices and teacher’s opinions, this chapter examines popular culture in children’s lives as social symbols. It is specifically concerned with the manner in which social class and preschool ideology contribute to or detract from children’s access to popular culture technology.

INTRODUCTION It is 10:00 a.m., center time for the children in Faith Christian’s Pre-K Classroom. The four and five-year-old children in the class are engaged in a myriad of activities: A few children are sprawled out on the carpet perusing picture books, while a DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-059-0.ch004

couple sit at tables with paper and pencils, tracing their names with the teacher. Not far away three children sit on a rug in front of a Teddy Ruxpin doll, a bear that moves his mouth animatronically when a cassette is placed in the player on his back. They are listening to Teddy “recite” a book on tape. In another corner, two other children are sitting at desks, headphones on their ears and a computer mouse in hand. Staring intently at the monitor

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in front of them, they are playing games such as Franklin’s Adventures and My Very First Little People Farm. These children are autonomous in their interaction with the computer; although the teacher is near they need very little assistance in navigating the games as they move the mouse, point and click from screen to screen with confidence. Computer time, books on tape and videos are all common activities for children in this preschool, they are seen as alternate modes of instruction, ways in which children engage with the curriculum. The above vignette illustrates how children in this particular preschool are expected and encouraged to interact with technology, specifically computer software. The rationale or goal according to the school is for the children to cultivate “basic computer skills and to develop eye–hand coordination” (website omitted for confidentiality). This preschool, like many others supports technology and the popular culture characters that pair as components of their instructional curriculum. This is not the case for all preschools; as I will discuss many see technology, media and popular culture as bothersome or even harmful (Buckingham & Sefton-Greene, 1994, 2004; Hodge & Trip, 1986).

Definitional Problems: Amalgamation of Popular Culture Characters and Technology Traditionally, when one speaks of “technology” they are concerned with hardware: television, video cassette and DVD players, computers, smartphones, videogame systems and educational learning systems. The images and characters, encoded with preferred meanings in a given society (Hall, 1999) are often left out. This omission is particularly problematic as in early childhood toy markets there is a close marriage of technology and popular culture. When using learning systems such Leap Frog Tag Reader, an interactive reading system, children “read” stories featuring

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Tinkerbelle from Peter Pan, Cars and Madagascar Penguins. And popular culture images, have in turn “branded” many hardware systems. As rudimentary laptops emblazoned with Hello Kitty and SpongeBob, Disney Princess television sets and Mickey Mouse Wii controllers have taught us, the explication from each other is difficult and boundary lines are often imprecise. Understanding the close ties, for the purpose of this chapter I use the term popular culture technology to include images and ideas but also the hardware systems needed to access the images and ideas. This chapter explores the marriage of popular culture and technology in preschool settings, specifically the manner in which social class and preschool ideology contribute to or detract from children’s access to popular culture technology. It draws on data collected in a study using comparative ethnographic methods in which I examined the uses and meanings ascribed to popular culture in three preschools in the United States that differ socio-economically and ideologically. For the purpose of this study I use the term social class to represent the income of parents in the United States and status of the students in a stratified system. I determine the socioeconomic level of each preschool by analyzing tuition required to attend each school. In addition I examine the economic criteria for tuition being waived for certain preschools. Preschools that steadfastly reject children’s interaction with technology and media figures may do so with the supposition that interaction with these media detract from a more authentic and “natural” learning experience. This critique often times pairs with the theory of Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) to view children’s interaction with popular culture through technological means as less than desirable and in many cases detrimental to social and cognitive development, particularly if the children are younger than three (Elkind, 1998; Haugland, 1999; NAEYC, 1996). In addition to criticisms of pedagogical implementations is the pervasive association of

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popular culture with the common or pedestrian and thus relegated to that of the working class. As Dyson argues, (1997) knowledge of certain symbolic systems, Greek Myths for example, when compared to the knowledge of Saturday morning cartoons, work to position children within stereotypical class relations.

Settings The three preschools selected for this study vary both in the identified social class, as defined in the United States, of the families they serve, as well as in their underlying program philosophy. I examined tuition or income qualifications for tuition waivers to determine the socioeconomic level of the families in each preschool. Working class: Hermosa: Hermosa is a public pre-k readiness preschool that serves a working class population, largely comprised of children of Hispanic descent. The preschool program is open to anyone residing within the elementary school district boundaries provided they will enter Kindergarten the following year. The tuition for families varies by income; if the family’s income exceeds the identified income qualification they can elect to attend under an optional “paid tuition” slot. However in the four years the program’s Early Childhood coordinator has been employed, no child registered for the Hermosa preschool has qualified for a paid tuition slot, in each case the family income has been below the line for the free and reduced lunch qualification and consequently receives a tuition waver from the school district. Noting this factor helps to understand this program only serves children whose family income is less than 185% of the federal poverty line (United States Department of Health and Human Services, www.hhs.org). This means that a family of four in order to attend Hermosa Preschool must report an annual gross income of less than $40,792.50 USD. As it is publically funded, Hermosa is the only preschool in which parents are required to report income in order to

qualify for program services. The remaining two preschools’ social class was determined by the monthly tuition charged to parents. Upper-middle class: Biltmore Montessori: I categorize Biltmore Montessori as an uppermiddle class preschool serving a population of children, the majority of whom are of European descent. Biltmore Montessori is a privately funded center which serves children infants to eighth grade, albeit on separate campuses. Tuition to attend the mandatory five day a week program for children ages three to six, not including lunch, is nearly $1,000 USD a month. While this cannot guarantee all children attending the school are from an upper middle class background, the posttax tuition ($12,000 USD annually) makes this a school financially out of reach of the majority of families. The school does offer scholarships and discounts to children of the teachers, diversifying the school population. The Montessori program emphasizes self-expression and creativity. Children are expected to be self-directed learners that are capable of making their own decisions and working independent of other students as well as the teacher. Lower-middle class: Faith Christian: Faith Christian is an independent, privately funded preschool connected with a Pre K with a religious curriculum’s tuition falls somewhere in between the other two schools with a monthly base tuition of around $400 USD. This however does not include additional “aftercare” tuition most children were charged for a full day of attendance. Tuition in this case increased to approximately $600 USD a month (children in aftercare were charged an hourly rate making the exact fee vary by child). It does accept subsidies from the Department of Economic Security to attract children from the surrounding working class neighborhood although the majority of the children attending the preschool do not qualify as their family income is too great Faith Christian emphasizes religious instruction and conservative values. In this setting children

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often work in large groups to accomplish tasks prescribed by the teacher. The combination of class, program ideology and the pedagogical approaches associated with each preschool makes each an individual site for study. Each site brings with it assumptions of the best approaches to Early Childhood Education which allows for identification of practice based on social class and ideology. These assumptions can provide a view of perceptions and acceptance of technology.

Objectives After reading this chapter the reader should develop a better understanding of the connection of ideology and social class in the acceptance or rejection of technology as a pedagogical tool. It attempts to call into question practices that are seen as natural or “appropriate” as specific to a cultural group. By examining this topic from a critical perspective it is my attempt to clarify curricular and pedagogical tools as not without class biases and intentions. This study endeavors to discuss class discriminates as well as religious and theoretical beliefs in the appearance of technology in both educational programs and the home lives of preschoolers. The reader should be able to use this information to analyze their beliefs about technology through the lens of personal and programmatic ideology and how this can influence their decisions about technology use in educational programs.

BACKGROUND: PRESCHOOL SETTINGS IN THE UNITED STATES In the United States, preschool is non-compulsory and the provision of preschool includes many different kinds of programs. These include federal, state, and municipal funded preschools; private for profit preschools; and private non-profit programs, some of which are religious. These widely vary-

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ing types of preschools generally serve relatively economical and culturally homogeneous groups of children. This is in part to the largely privatized nature of early childhood education in the United States. In addition to and as a result of the “optional” nature of preschool in the United States, preschool has become a largely privatized sector of education with many different approaches to early childhood education. Some are play based, some constructivist, while others promote early literacy in school readiness programs. There is very little regulation of preschool programs and the funding of preschools come from a variety of sources. This privatization has created what Tobin, Hsueh and Karasawa (2009, p.9) describe as a “highly crazy quilt of early childhood education programs.” This leads to many conflicting and contrasting views of the methods in which children should be educated and what content should be taught. The preschools in this study are located within a seven mile radius of each other in an urban area of a major city located in the Southwestern United States but have widely varying tuition requirements as well as criteria for admission. I identify this, as the homogeneous urban environment helps to highlight the extreme privatization of preschools that can happen within a fairly close proximity. As all three preschools are in urban environments, it allows examination on how parents segregate preschools based on economic and ideological factors and not proximity. It helps to emphasize that the choice of preschools is not arbitrary (although some could be) and not simply based on locality. With widely varying access to preschools, many factors such as tuition, location and school hours affect the choice of preschools for parents. For example a preschool with a high tuition and limited morning hours may not attract parents on fixed incomes that need extended care for children in order to work, Likewise parents of middle and upper middle class will not qualify for school readiness programs or headstart. Parents also choose preschools to reflect individual philo-

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sophical needs. A parent that endorses deference to authority would not typically endorse a child centered ideology found in many progressive, constructivist preschool programs. These philosophical beliefs play an important role in children’s access to technology as they are the underpinnings of the curriculum. While many constructivist philosophies such as Reggio Emilia and “school readiness preschools” endorse the idea of technology, (specifically computers) as an added benefit and resource to preschool children, other more holistic philosophies such as Montessori and Waldorf often view technology as developmentally inappropriate and a hindrance to more naturalistic and authentic learning (Montessori 1995; Petrash,2002). The three preschools in this study can be described as serving working class, lower-middle class, and upper-middle class children respectively, but such economic labels describe only a part of their cultural capital and ideological location within American society. As in Joseph Tobin’s work Good Guys Don’t Wear Hats (2000), this study explores the way nationally and increasingly globalized circulating popular culture is used and given meanings in particular local settings, as influenced by class, ethnicity, and local political and social factors. These sites are not “self-contained cultures, but local site(s) in a complex larger society” (Tobin, 2000, 149). This mixture of economic and ideological factors allows me to explore the interaction or intersectionality of economic and ideological factors, rather than to ascribe differences in how these three programs deal with popular culture technology to the workings of either class or ideology alone. These sites are not simply working class, lower-middle class, or upper-middle class preschools; but instead sites where class, ethnicity, religion, and ideology intersect. This study can help us understand how teachers of a lower- middle class, socially conservative Christian preschool approach popular culture technology, but I take care not to suggest that this finding can be extended to all Christian preschools or all lower- middle class

schools. One of my key findings is that ideology influences the opinions and practices as much, or more than, social class. In the upper-middle class Montessori program parents and teachers react in a much different manner than would be found in a study conducted in an upper-middle class socially conservative (e.g., church or temple based) preschool. The intersection of conservative ideology and upper-middle class when studied in the preschool space would most likely present findings that reflected both ideology and class. It cannot be one or the other but it is the space or this crossroad of parents’ social class, teachers’ social class and ideologies that determine practices in the classroom. Preschools are rich sites for conducting research on technology and popular culture because they are places where the culture of home encounters the culture of schooling, where the private and public domains meet. Preschools are sites where beliefs of children, parents, and teachers come into contact and sometimes clash. These sites are spaces where there is a constant negotiation of meanings and, like markets and carnivals as discussed by Bakhtin in Rabelais and His World (1984), sites for the interaction and interpenetration of discourses and ideologies. It is in this space that meaning is localized and contextualized. In the tradition of educational anthropology this study’s interest lies in the situated use of the products in these spaces. In each setting it is not just the technology in the setting that is of interest but also the meaning that children and adults alike ascribed to these images and media. In each setting I consider the school as a site where the opinions of parents were influenced by many factors.

The Vicissitude of Popular Culture Technology A succinct definition of what comprises media is problematic when discussing popular culture and technology, for in many cases they blend to possess

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synonymous definitions and are often considered as such. This in part is attributable to the manner in which children interact with popular culture. Access to and interaction with popular culture images is delivered in technological means, thus blurring the definition. Although it is feasible for a child to access popular culture without technology (such as reading a book about Disney’s The Little Mermaid) the story of the mermaid and the animated images contained in the pages are reflective of a technology, in this case a movie. As most of the character books are typically written above emergent literacy (they are not heavily populated with sight words and repetitive phrases) the manner in which the children engage with the text is not actually through the written word but either through viewing the images (pictures reflective of the movie) or from prior experience watching the movie. Tobin’s discussion of the evolution of the global phenomenon Pokémon in Pikachu’s Global Adventure, (2004, p.3) helps to illuminate the amalgamation of popular culture and technology and explains the definitional instability of popular culture media. Pokémon which began life as a piece of software to be played on Nintendo’s game boy (a handheld computer for playing video games) quickly diversified into a comic book, a television show, a movie, trading cards, stickers, small toys and ancillary products such as backpacks and tee shirts. This description illuminates the dynamic and widespread nature of children’s commercial culture. Ideas and images that begin in one technological medium such as television can quickly spread to others. Pokémon, as described by Tobin began as a video game but it is one of the few popular culture characters stemming from video games that appear in the lives of preschoolers. In most cases children access popular culture through television, videos and DVDs. But as Tobin points

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out the images can quickly spread into subsidiary products. Perhaps there is no better example of popular culture enduring and transcending media boundary lines than Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Originally published in 1856, the story took on many screen adaptations and in 1951 was modified by Walt Disney to an animated feature length film but was not released on home video until October 15, 1981. This had the single greatest effect in opening up the image to a larger audience. (Before the home video release children had to attend one of the three theatre releases to view the movie. Afterwards it was possible for anyone with a VCR to view the movie at any time.) As was the case with most Disney movies the characters from Alice in Wonderland have appeared as figurines, tee shirts, and cups (Disneystore. com). Alice in Wonderland game was released for Nintendo’s Game boy in 2000. Even more recently the story was retold as a non-animated film by Director Tim Burton. New appropriations on the classic characters have been developed as figurines; clothing and plush animals as well as digital merchandize and technology, (specifically video games) which have been released for Nintendo DS and computer platforms. A.A.Milne’s Winnie the Pooh (1926) is another excellent example of the fluidity of popular culture images. The image of Pooh bear and the other inhabitants of the hundred acre wood were introduced through children’s literature. It was reimagined and redrawn in the 1930’s to include the modern day Pooh Bear’s trademark red shirt. It was then was licensed to Disney in 1961; they in turn created the animated series, movies, and the merchandizing that exists today. The characters from Pooh Corner now appear on merchandize such as baby bassinets, baby mobiles, strollers, clothing, shoes, movies, pencils and pens, as well as Leap Frog Tag Junior stories, videos, televisions and telephones in the shape of pooh bear and Nintendo DS games and covers (Target, 2010).

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I reference this not to critique the extensive distribution of these images but to emphasize the method in which popular culture and technology have largely become synonymous as well as the ability of these images to transcend media and time. These images, partially due to the roots in classic children’s literature are for the most part seen as innocent, fanciful and benign. This is certainly not the case for all popular culture images.

Media and the Effects Paradigms Media studies are often fraught with binaries of good and evil, in many cases children’s popular culture technology is seen as either extremely harmful or fancifully benign. As a result the issues and debates surrounding popular culture are often polarized in assumptions of the effects of popular culture technology on children, It is no surprise that subjects of commercialism, consumption and pop culture elicit responses that resemble a political debate. The literature on children and pop culture falls into two camps that differ on the relative powers of media messages and the agency of children. This is sometimes referred to as the debate of structure versus agency (Buckingham, 1998; Buckingham and Sefton Green, 2004). The roots of the debate are located in understandings of childhood, of child development, popular culture, and consumption. The first school of thought centers on the notion of interpellation. Interpellation, as theorized by Althusser (1970), describe a mechanism whereby the human subject is constituted by pre-given structures and ideologies. Interpellation assumes that media effects can be traced to the accrual over time of repeated experiences of being hailed by the same ideological messages (Tobin, 2000). The concern is that if children are repeatedly exposed to adverse messages embedded in popular culture, that they will internalize the messages Sammond (2005) identifies this as a profoundly durable idea, the idea that people in general and children in particular can and do absorb values

directly from the media they consume. It posits villains (children’s media and toy producers) and implies the need for programs of social correction and control. This is largely because media studies discourses often construct children as innocents, as victims of current commercial media and potential threats to the future social order (Molnar, 2005, Thorne, 1987, Zelziner, 1985). Lemish (2007, pp.102) names this ideology as “dominant force theory,” characterizing it as a strong effects theory of mass communication that focuses on studies of public opinion and political campaigns. Pervasive in mid-twentieth century North American research, the basic premise is viewing television changes behavior and that the alteration is detrimental to the well being of the child. There is an assumption that television violence instigates violent behavior, commercials lead to the purchase of consumer products, and sex on television leads to permissive sexual behavior. Reminiscent of classical social psychological studies such as Alfred Bandura’s Bobo Doll study, this viewpoint leaves little room for agency. Sammond (2005) elaborates that the critique of popular culture undervalues the potential agency of the members of this culture who are seen as defenseless Curiously enough, this “media effects” camp has united liberals and conservative in common cause in support of protectionism. Both conservative proponents of Victorian family values and left wing critics of manipulative consumerism embrace parents’ and children’s rights to be freed from the pressures of consumerism (Cross, 2004, pp.180). The political right attacks the notion of popular culture for its lack of morality. Conservative parents have sought to isolate their young from threats to their religious, moral and even political values (Cross, 2004. 164). In Babes in TomorrowlandSammond (2005) identifies right wing critiques of Disney movies (and images) as focused on delivering encoded pro-homosexual, pedophiliac and antichristian messages to American children.

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In leftist political arenas, “television is often regarded as an extremely powerful agent of dominant ideology, a kind of propaganda machine which is responsible for brainwashing children into consumerism and other forms of false consciousness” (Buckingham, 1993, pp.7). With roots in the Frankfurt school and theorists including Horkheimer and Adorno, this viewpoint critiques mass or consumer culture as enfeebling non-commercial culture and thwarting the possibilities for revolutionary social change. In the words of Curren (2003, pp.166): They scrutinize the pedagogical and sociological functions of the cultural industries in the reproduction of contemporary societies and held that mass culture and communication stand at the center of leisure activity are important agents of socialization and education, are mediators of political reality and thus should be seen as major institutions of contemporary societies within a variety of economic political cultural and social effects. The primary concern here is the message of commercialism rather than threats to morality. This theorizing from the left fears the influence of commercialism; that it may weaken youths’ later ability to be creative, to make rational judgments or to defer gratification. Therefore there is a need to shield children from this exposure (Cross, 2004). Rooted in a Marxist and neo-Marxist ideology, this viewpoint is critical of mass culture as it is seen to control manipulate, segment and debase society, and to contribute to the breakdown of local communities and to produce harmful forms of individualism and materialism (Kenway and Bullen, 2003). In addition to critiques stemming from inappropriate content, popular culture and particularly technology are often perceived as cutting children off from the social atmosphere and peer culture in which they need to function. Vygotskian in nature, the assumption commonly associated with Developmentally Appropriate Practice conveys

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the expectation that children learn best when engaged with peers or adults in a social setting. Aside from judgments on the effects of content of popular, this helps to explain why video games, popular culture movies and sometimes computers are largely viewed pedagogically as a detrimental agent in preschool children’s lives. As Ellen Seiter succinctly describes: Child experts, television critics and protectionists are convinced that television deters children from achieving normative agendas of child development: direct interaction with peers and parents, “large motor” skills, socialization, cognitive and physical development. Television is excluded from the list of activities that can “stimulate” growth-and stimulation is something that parents are supposed to provide in endless supply from infancy onward. (Seiter, 1998, p.312) Kenway and Bullen parallel Seiter’s representation of the media effects theory: “The media is blamed for kids short attention spans; it is seen to render them passive, to undermine their capacity to play independently, to entertain themselves and also to threaten their creativity” (2001 p.3). This critique, content specific in nature also addresses the pedagogical implications of the popular culture/technological product. The secondary viewpoint credits consumers (sometimes children) with a greater degree of agency in interpretation and mediation of these messages. Scholars that adopt this viewpoint view the construal of these images to be largely dependent on the consumer’s context and prior knowledge of the subject. Twitchell demonstrates a rather critical perspective of the effects paradigm when calling into question the assumption that it makes about consumers as easily duped. “Why has the hypodermic metaphor (false needs injected into a docile populace) become the unchallenged explanation of consumerism?” (2000, p.272). I locate my work in this more optimistic tradition (one similar to Buckingham’s (1984)

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which considers context and prior knowledge in determining what children make of technology in preschool settings. In rejecting the practice of binary opposition of structure and agency, I acknowledging that popular culture technology and the subjects that it delivers is neither wholly beneficial, benign, nor malevolent. It is the interpretation and the context or situated meaning that can inform. I am not as concerned with the originated content as the focus but rather how parents, teachers and children interpret these messages and what they do with the images. Stuart Hall’s articulation of preferred meanings helps to illuminate this point (1999). Mass commercial culture artifacts carry meanings that are “intended” by marketing and advertizing, ascribed with particular characteristics and ideas for consumption. But children, much like adults may take this subject matter and use it to suit their own tastes and desires. As Erica Rand (1995) shows, consumers understand these images but use them for their own purposes. In recalling childhood play with Barbie women discuss from an adult’s perspective the manners that they used Barbie to suit their own desires. Rand reveals “while the actual products and advertisements/ explanations produced by Mattel clearly had an effect on what consumers wanted, saw and did, Barbie consumption still looks quite different than the Barbie Play on commercials. (1995, p.126). One of the reasons she states was limited means of the children to attain all of the parts represented by merchandise but then opened her explanation to include perspectives grounded in queer theory. Elizabeth Chin in Purchasing Power, (2001) a study of consumption with working class African American youth echoes this sentiment as she shows girls reconfiguring images of Barbie to reflect ideas that are more indicative of African American working class culture. The girls in study had very little access to “ethnically correct dolls, they were only able to access the stereotypically blonde haired, white skinned middle class Barbies. Chin reveals that “Girls in Newhallville worked

on their dolls materially and symbolically, blurring racial ab-solutes by putting their hair into distinctively African American styles using beads, braids, and foil in ways racially marked as black” (1999, 306). She notes, drawing on Bourdieu (1984) that consumption under capitalism is inherently mediated by culture. It is in this manner children can negotiate meanings and display agency. Objects and ideas that are brought into a space with one meaning particularly a shared space such as a classroom can have new meanings ascribed to them. The meaning of an object is not fixed but can be reappropriated based on the ideas and cultural knowledge that adults and children brings to the table (Hall, 1999). As Hall suggests, “The same photo or image can carry several quite different sometimes diametrically opposite meaning… There is no one ‘true’ meaning, meaning floats.”(1997, p.228) These scholars are more confident in the ability of children to construct their own meaning of these messages. This more libratory viewpoint does not suggest that children never internalize messages set forth from multinational billion dollar corporations, but it assigns greater agency to the viewer in deconstructing and reappropriating messages based on context and prior experiences. James Jenks and Prout (1998, 6) explain that this is a “piece of a new paradigm in which children are understood to be actors shaping as well as shaped by their circumstances.” This trajectory does not reject the Birmingham Cultural Studies approach of identifying multinational corporations and marketing giants in assigning preferred meanings to objects, it simply opens a space for considering the way particular consumers in particular contexts use and makes sense of media texts and other popular cultural products. In other words children do interesting and novel things with these popular culture characters particularly in their interaction with popular culture technology. Activity is present in consumption and the meaning of a product or text is negotiated between producers and consumers. De Certeau (1984) outlines that

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the intent of appropriation made by the producers (marketing giants and advertisers) is not always the usage of the consumers: The presence and circulation of a representation (taught by preachers, educators and populizers as the key to socioeconomic advancement) tells us nothing about what it is for the users. We must first analyze it’s manipulation by users who are not its makers. Only then can we gage the difference or similarity between the production of the image and the secondary production hidden in the process of its utilization. (de Certeau, 1984, pp. xii). Thus it rejects a structure and agency paradigm. Children are not bound by the storylines presented in popular culture media but may use these storylines in ways considered libratory when compared with the traditions of the Frankfurt School. In discussing children and technological media I am less concerned with the effect that media technology has on children then the manner in which children interact with it.

ISSUES, CONTROVERSIES, PROBLEMS: THE CONFLICT OF DIGITAL MEDIA AND “AUTHENTIC” LEARNING In preschool settings digital media particularly that concerned with popular culture is often seen as a poor substitute for the materials children should be interacting with. The preferred objects are typically viewed as more concrete terms; examples are manipulatives such as sand and water tables, blocks and puzzles. The preference for these materials is often unquestionable as they are seen as classic, simple and pro-educational. The underlying discourse of these often conjures up a somewhat nostalgic and utopian view of “appropriate” children’s activities. As Cross (2004) and others discuss, the carefully chosen materials are typically seen as markers of good middle class taste (Cook,

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2004; Cross, 2004). I present this not to critique the pedagogical applications of such materials in the classroom but to suggest that these are often held as a benchmark of appropriate instructional practices. The implicit binary, following Derrida (1998) is that technological media when compared to these authentic and quality goods is somehow lacking. This is typically caught in a nostalgic discourse of simpler times and simpler toys void of popular culture and technology. Many scholars have written of the privileging of the written word and traditional literary discourse over more popular culture texts such as Pokémon (Gee, 2004, 2007; Tobin, 2004). As mainstream literacy criticism and the educational establishment “in practice have tended to be elitist, they are generally opposed to popular texts that are enjoyed by children and hostile to any cultural form that seems to threaten the written word” (Hodge and Trip, 1986, pp.4). As historically popular culture media is seen as having a low value when compared to the knowledge economy of the school (Bourdieu, 1984), it has resulted in the outlawing of popular culture representations by some school administrations in official policy as well as practice. The knowledge economy or legitimate culture has been described as the official knowledge of school (Gee, 2004), but why? It rests on the supposition of class distinctions (and biases), that one type of knowledge is indicative of a more genteel class. Children, in order to adequately function within the promise of middle class society, must adopt an official school knowledge that is often rooted in higher cultural knowledge. Bourdieu (1984, pp.23) writes, “The educational system defines non-curricular general culture (La Culture Libre) negatively at least by delimiting within the dominant culture the area of what it puts into its syllabus and controls by its examinations.” At the root of the debate is the preference middle class parents may display for activities and materials that align more closely with school. Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital in the embod-

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ied state (1984) helps to illuminate the privileging of the written word as a marker of middle and upper middle class taste. This explains the preference for traditional literary discourse over more popular culture texts such as Pokémon (Gee, 2004; Tobin, 2004). As popular culture technology typically takes on an informal method of instruction, it can be attained by a person of any class. Save the entrance fee of technology, it by its very definition is relegated to be of the masses. As de Certeau (1984,pp.xv) writes, “ Popular culture, as well as a whole literature called popular take on a different aspect as they present themselves essentially as arts of the making.” When compared to official knowledge of school curriculum (which typically requires formal schooling) popular culture almost always plays second fiddle in importance. Apple recognizes additional implications, that behind the rejection of a lower or non legitimate culture (such as popular culture) is a class specific motivation, noting “the ways in which such class conversion strategies privilege particular class actors in education and de power others and an analysis of these strategies are crucial if we are to more fully comprehend the ways in which the struggle counts as legitimate culture versus popular culture” (2006, pp.ix).

Popular Culture Technology as Social Symbols Stephen Kline in Out of the Garden (1993) argues that goods used in preschools (and preschools themselves) are social symbols that articulate social aspirations and convey complex social relations. The interpretations of these objects depend on a shared understanding of meaning and vary from setting to setting. Within sites the meanings of objects of popular culture can vary greatly between children and their parents and teachers. In other words, children are in a sense like a class or interest group with their own beliefs and forms of cultural capital. These beliefs and

forms reflect without reproducing those of the adults, peers and media around them. A central concern of this study is how the rejection or acceptance in school of certain types of popular culture technology reflects the workings of social class, especially of parents’ and teachers’ cultural capital. Cultural studies scholars (Bourdieu, Barthes, Baudrillard, and Hall among others) analyze the way objects, including popular cultural objects and texts, carry meaning. As Bourdieu writes, “Taste classifies and classifies the classifiers” (1984, pp. 6). The assumption of this study, following Bourdieu, is that by consuming (or rejecting) particular forms of popular culture and technology people attempt to locate themselves and the children they educate and care for in a desired class identity. Annette Lareau’s (2003) middle class concept of “concerted cultivation” helps to inform class biases of indulging in popular culture as a deficient or less than desirable behavior. She outlines that parents of middle and upper middle class see that the choices that they make in children’s activities as preparation or skill building. Children are exposed to carefully chosen educational environments, lessons and activities in the hopes of preparing children to be successful middle class adults. They are also learning behaviors of these activities that mimic school behaviors and carry a high degree of cultural capital. For example, Cross (2004) suggests that the habitus or cultural practice of upper middle class American parents leads them to discourage many forms of children’s popular culture as unrefined or common. As middle class and upper-middle class parents begin this cultivation early, toys and activities are seen as part of this preparation. Judgment of working class families are often caught in this effort. As concerted cultivation is habitus, any deviation is seen as unacceptable. As Bourdieu (1984) discusses, class specific behaviors become so normalized and ingrained that behaviors outside the class become distasteful or disgusting. The sexualized plastic toys that working class children are given

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and the violent or mature movies that children are allowed to watch become more than arbitrary choices. Framed in this middle class discourse they are not just unacceptable, they are seen as an unrefined form of indulgence that inadequately prepare children for life. While these ideas may reflects an upper-middle class bias and are not accepted across all social classes in the United States they provide a better understanding of how class systems perceive and accept technology and pop culture. It also explains why some forms of popular culture are held in a lower regard across class systems.

Upper Middle Class: Technology as a Gateway Biltmore Montessori, a private Montessori preschool draws students from affluent upper middle class households. It has the most expensive tuition; it nears 1,000 dollars a month for the preschool program. It also held the most rejectionary views of popular culture. In this preschool popular culture technology was overwhelmingly viewed as a distraction and a harmful influence. The director, Ms.Millie steadfastly attempted to block what she saw as an intrusion into their mission of peace. In comparison to other sites where popular culture technology was viewed as largely a whimsical interest of children, at Biltmore Montessori popular culture technology is interpreted as consumeristic and devious. The director, adopting a viewpoint consistent with the effects paradigm felt that media targeted children and “taught them to be consumers.” As a result of the perceived influence of popular culture, the school even had rules banning popular culture clothing and images. Consistent with AMI Montessori schools Technology such as videos, movies, computers and popular culture images were also not a component of the primary (age 3-6) classroom. This is not to suggest that children in this setting were void of technological interaction. To the contrary, children in this setting interacted with popular culture technology to a

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greater degree that children in other settings did, in this case the images came exclusively from the children’s time spent at home. Among the upper-middle class the conflict over toys and television was not based on affordability (as was the case in other preschools) but on ideological and aesthetic objections. Parents often saw popular culture media as representative of corporate influence. Parents were much more interested in the message that the toys and media conveyed; their primary concern was the educational implications of the interaction. Popular culture media was endorsed when it promoted values that aligned with types of knowledge typically found in formal education (Gee, 2004). Expressing admiration for children’s play that displayed a more scientific or analytical theme, the parents of this setting would seek out technological products that claim to offer “edutainment “and that prepare and educate children to “get ahead” and separate their children from the masses. As represented in the transcript from a focus group, one mother explains: I have three daughters, ages 4, 5 and 7 they (their interest in popular culture characters) used to fluxuate… now, and their kind of unusual favorite is criminal minds. They identify with Dr. Reid. Dr. Reid is a very intellectual character, has 187 IQ and can read 20,000 words a minute so they all want to be in the FBI and be just like Dr. Reid. The mother explained that although it was a more “mature” show she really liked the positive influence. The detail given of Dr. Reed’s character in terms of intellectual capacity and capability helps to uncover the rationale for support. In this case the mother sees this as an intellectual role model with an advanced degree. Following Bourdieu (1986)the framing of popular culture in terms of intellectual capacity speaks to support of cultural capital of the embodied state. It becomes a way for parents to support endeavors that further trajectories closest to formal education.

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Observations of children in the preschool reflected a likeminded opinion from other parents. The children through play indicated an exposure to technology that had a scientific and educational undercurrent. In my observation of work time at Biltmore I observed one preschooler display this practice: Toby: I’m making a rocket out of this. These are the astronauts, they have a Moon Lander. They are about to land and go back to Earth, roger that, I have a rocket. There’s an exploration kit inside the other part…It’s moving back to command module, commencing to redock bshhhhsbbbbshhhhh (making a noise as he lowers the block to the ground.) (He switches into a deeper and much more serious voice.) Houston says Apollo 11 commencing to redock... roger that….this part….they are about to leave Moon Lander. These shoes (points to his sneakers) these are moonboots. There isn’t any gravity when I walk with them. I suspected based on the vocabulary and tone that he “switched into” that he had experience with some form of technology that emitted such phrases as “Houston says Apollo commencing to redock.” Reminiscent of Bahktin’s heteroglossia (where speakers bring traces of other discourses within their speech,) Toby’s utterances indicated an alternate source (Bahktin, 1986). Indeed when asked “how do you know about Houston and shuttles”, Toby references his movie “Journey to the Moon.” The assistant teacher added that Toby’s “thing” was space; his parents had been to visit the NASA station and had brought the movie back as a souvenir. In addition to emphasis on a scientific knowledge parents supported popular culture technology when it promoted values that parents saw as more refined. Parent: “The Barbie movie that I was talking about it is called Swan Lake- I mean it has Barbie but it has the music from Swan Lake and it’s not bad

at all it exposes them to something positive, and they have no idea what they are being exposed to but they recognize the songs and love them and the Nutcracker and I kind of like that Another parent: I am gonna go get these movies This “something positive” is the professed knowledge of classical music. Explaining “I mean it has Barbie but it is music from Swan Lake”, she clarifies that the value of the video is not Barbie but the inclusion of Tchaikovsky’s composition. Bourdieu (1984) specifically outlines professed knowledge of composers to be a marker of upper class taste, indicative of a higher degree of cultural capital. Consistent with Bourdieu’s findings, parents of children in the upper-middle class school at Biltmore Montessori had a much greater knowledge of how specific toys and TV programs could prepare their children for academic success. They did not see their choices as arbitrary or happenstance. They were calculated based on their ability to contribute to the trajectory of educational success (Lareau, 2003). Computers, while rejected by the school as an AMI Montessori were universally endorsed by parents, seen as a mode of preparation. Parents while endorsing computer games overall specifically spoke with approval of games that they felt had pro-educational attributes. This caused parents to seek out computer games that would further their educational goals. Criteria for games included an educational trajectory however parents shied away from choices that they saw as overly didactic, as a recurring theme in this setting was an emphasis on the activity and creativity in the interaction. As represented by a focus group discussion a father discussed the frustration he felt for educational games that held children’s interest, supplying: “they market these as fun games that are to be learning games and you get into them and it’s like what’s 2+2 and it’s like… How long is this gonna keep and they really don’t… compared to the

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regular games, I mean we let them on PBS Kids, and they are just kinda looking around, goofing around.” The critique while initially concerned with the rudimentary nature also speaks to the concern that upper middle class parents have regarding procedural and overly didactic curriculum. Alternative suggestions that met parental approval included games that promoted financial literacy. One parent expressed that the recent Christmas holiday had supplied her family with a computer game by Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the book Rich Dad Poor Dad: “it’s a really cool game. It teaches them about managing money and obtaining financial security and I love that. They don’t know what they are doing but they are getting a dose of something pretty useful.” In addition to their support of computers, parents endorsed learning systems and media that were overtly educational. Leap frog laptops were substituted for Nintendo DS on supposition that they better supported cognitive growth. Tag reader systems, while not discussed in this setting are another “learning system” produced by Leapfrog and marketed as proeducational. Both of these products pair extensively with characters from television and movies, increasing the draw for children and parents alike to consume media. Many parents saw it as a good compromise. While the parents did express concern with messages of popular culture as antifeminist and commercial when it was applied in an educational manner they acquiesced. Parents conceded that while they attempted to engage their children with computers, video games had the most intensive pull for the children. Incidentally this is also where most of the more common or mainstream popular culture characters entered. Nintendo DS, a handheld computer game system was an area of great tension between parent and adult. Marketed to children and adults, it has games deemed educational as promoted and advertized to pair with games such as Brain Age. The system, coveted by children was viewed as marginally acceptable by parents. Parents did not

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endorse the interaction nearly to the backing they gave computers but “gave in” to purchasing the system which has many features similar to a traditional video game system. Much like a computer the games available on the system can vary from those traditionally considered educational to more mainstream popular culture titles. Incidentally the children reported consuming titles that were more concerned with mainstream popular culture than educational titles. Pokémon, available on the Nintendo DS was a favored game that was a topic of much contention at Biltmore Montessori. Administration saw Pokémon as possessing harmful influences on the students’ behavior. The director Ms. Millie explained that while videogames have never been allowed, cards and dramatic play revolving around Pokémon was permitted in the past, but were later banned for their “violent influence.” She felt the children “totally assumed the role of Pokémon” and that they were “taken over” and it was “challenging to stop that.” “They would come to school and pretend to be the Pokémon characters.” Ms. Millie explained that the rule was that no cards were to be brought to school and if they were, they were confiscated. I asked for further explanation of the rules governing Pokémon: Allison: Are they allowed to make up scenarios or games about Pokémon as long as they don’t bring the cards? You know, can they talk about them, play the game outside? Ms. Millie: No, we would stop anything to do with Pokémon. It was combative you know, the aggressive kicking and hitting. Part of the reason Ms. Millie was supportive of a ban on Pokémon was because of her own feelings on the subject. She explained that she went to a Pokémon movie with her own son and was very displeased with how she felt the characters acted towards each other. She said they were “nasty” to each other. The strong feelings of the administra-

Technology in Three American Preschools

tion did little to quell the students’ interest in this media, as represented by a discussion that I has with one student: Alan directs his question toward me, “Do magnets fall off? Allison: Do magnets fall off? (Pause) I don’t know what you mean. Alan: (Ignoring my question) these are slicing things (pointing to two blocks.) People. Charion comes out of here (moves one of the pieces aside). He’s one of the hardest people and when you beat this you meet another slicer. Allison: How do you beat them? Alan: You beat them by Pokémon. You see, the boat appears and a secret platform comes out of here and they can (pause), the green part and the yellow part, they block you from getting into the red part. You have to, you have to (pause), it teleports you on a secret platform. This part looks like guns because it is broken off of the ground. And this part teleports you to a secret island called (pause), Genora. Then a piece of ground comes up and bshhhhhh, I play Pokémon. You send out Pokémon until health gets knocked out and when you, when you capture the master ball. I have Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky. I beat Pokea but Diego is harder. I like this and this other magnets work better than other things. Allison: Why? Alan: The other ones you have to build a certain thing. This way (motions to the magnet blocks) you can build whatever you want. Allison: And you can play Pokémon. Are you allowed to play Pokémon here?

Alan: Well, yes, no, no video games here. We have work, lunch, playground and art. While the administration steadfastly attempted to block what they saw as a harmful intrusion parents in this setting were more willing to have the children engage with the characters that held their attention. The emphasis in this setting, on the intellectual capacity of popular culture was seen as something that could mediate perceived ill or less than desirable effects of media.

Working Class: A Child’s World In sharp contrast to the upper middle class setting of Biltmore Montessori is the working class community of Hermosa. Hermosa falls into the category of a Title I school, under the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This division affords “Financial Assistance to Local Educational Agencies for the Education of Children of Low-Income Families” (United States Department of Education, 2009). In order to qualify for this designation more than 40 percent of the families that the school serves must be considered low income, according to the United States Census. Title I, the largest elementary and secondary education program, supplements state and local funding for low-achieving children, in high-poverty schools. The preschool program as part of a school readiness platform endorsed early literacy skills, dramatic play and social development. Facilitated by large amounts of time in child-directed centers, there were also commonly whole group instruction of stories, finger plays and songs. The teacher Ms. Lena used this time to enhance literacy and self expression. When discussing popular culture in the classroom and the meanings ascribed it is also important to consider not only what the presence of popular culture suggests but what the absence of popular culture reveals. In Biltmore Montessori it reflected a belief that children were best

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educated with traditional Montessori materials and that popular culture was believed to infringe on a “natural peaceful education”. Hermosa preschool also displayed very few examples of popular culture technology in the classroom but for diverse reasons. True to its mission of a school readiness preschool, the primary objective in this setting was to advance children in manners of literacy, numeracy and social skills. Ms. Lena focused on activities that were literacy based such as read alouds. In addition to structured whole group activities children were afforded a large degree of autonomy in individual play. Ms Lena saw this as promoting language and social skills through interaction. The school did provide one computer for student use but in two months of observation no child interacted with it. As my field work for this preschool occurred in the first two months of the school year it is possible that observations later in the year would yield a much different result. Language development was arguably the primary focus of this preschool. As the majority of the students spoke Spanish as their home language, there was urgency for cultivation of English. Arizona, where this study took place has legislatively outlawed instruction of students in any other language than English beginning in Kindergarten. Factoring this in allows for a greater understanding of the rationale behind Ms. Lena’s choice of activities; those including passive viewing of videos/ computers for curricular content did not further the mission of extending and practicing language. nearly to the extent of child directed play and teacher led activities (such as circle time) This was another albeit hidden objective in the name of school readiness. Ms. Lena did not actively introduce any form of popular culture technology (as was the case at Faith Christian) in the classroom although the classroom library did include books with Clifford and Sesame Street. She while not keenly endorsing characters did not dismiss them provided that they were what she considered “preschool appropriate.”

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In addition to concerns of language development Ms. Lena focused on social skills and preschool behaviors. Many of the children’s in preschool had little experience in a school like setting. In contrast to as the other two schools where the children began preschool at age three or before (Biltmore Phoenix has an infant/toddler program), the Early Childhood Block Grant funds preschools for children for one year before kindergarten. All of the children in the setting entered preschool for the first time at age four. Although serving a working class population, the Hermosa Preschool program reflects many middle-class beliefs about early childhood education. While the two teachers in the classroom at Hermosa come from working class, immigrant backgrounds, their attitudes about popular culture reflect a middle class viewpoint. One explanation is that Hermosa is accredited by NAEYC. Another is that in the course of taking classes in Early Childhood Education and getting a teacher certification in Early Childhood Education, the teachers at Hermosa have been exposed to and taken on the ideological beliefs of their university instructors and textbooks. For these reasons, it is no surprise that the rules about popular culture at Hermosa reflect the middle class belief that children are vulnerable innocents who need to be shielded from commercialized, morally offensive, vulgar forms of popular culture (Cross, 2004). For middle class parents, as in mainstream early childhood educational ideology, children’s popular culture falls into two categories, one of which is embraced, the other reviled. The first is a category that includes toys and television programs that present themselves as educational, such as Legos, Fisher Price toys, Sesame Street, Bob the Builder, Dora, Blue’s Clues and Thomas the Train. In interviews at all three settings parents as well as teachers expressed approval of these forms of popular culture, which were assumed to promote pro-social and educational values and therefore to be beneficial to children’s development. In fact, the purported educational value of these programs

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and toys kept them from being classified as forms of popular culture or as commercial products. Ideas that hint at “mature” subject matter (interpreted as teenage or adult sexuality) also fall into the, second, despised category of products and programs for children. Popular culture products such as Hannah Montana, Cheetah Girls and Bratz, which are aimed at the tween population and at younger children’s aspirational viewing and consumption fall into this category. In alluding to teenage sexuality, they violate middle class norms which emphasize a Victorian innocence of children (Cross, 2004). Upper-middle class parents of Biltmore Montessori were vehemently opposed to Bratz, based mostly on a feminist critique. They saw these dolls as promoting a bad image for girls, with their short skirts and heavy makeup. One parent even went so far as to suggest that that the Bratz dolls were “trashy” and reminiscent of prostitutes. Bourdieu points out that such expressions of disgust are performances of cultural capital, that distastes proceeds tastes, and that: “Different tastes are thus seen as unnatural and rejected, resulting in disgust provoked by horror or visceral intolerance (‘feeling sick’) of the tastes of others” (1984,p.56). Toys and programs that fall into this “edgy” category, while not necessarily endorsed by Hermosa parents were not rejected. Instead both categories of popular culture were all seen as toys that their children like to play with and programs they like to watch. Whereas parents mentioned a preference for popular cultural products such as Maya and Miguel, that seem to fall into the first category, they did not reject Bratz, Barbie, Spiderman, and Hulk, who were discussed in much the same way as was Sesame Street. Consider the following scene I observed at Hermosa where a small group of children were playing with Barbie dolls: Michelle: I got Bratz dolls. Allison: You have Bratz Dolls?

Alana: Me too, I got Bratz dolls too, and Barbies. I got lots of them. They pretty. Allison: What do you play with your Bratz and Barbie dolls? Alana: They’re my sister’s, not mine, but they’re my favorites. Matthew: (Chiming in): I got a Hulk doll, but not a real one Allison: What is a real one? Matthew: A big one, you know, like the guy on TV, you know I got one at home. The dolls the children discuss here are clearly common play objects in the home. These types of dolls were somewhat tolerated by the middle-class parents at Faith Christian, rejected at Biltmore Montessori. For the working class the first and second category merged into a larger category of things of interest to children. I mention this not to suggest that the Hermosa parents saw no difference in the categories, some Hermosa parents expressed concern for the content. One father was very concerned with his daughter being exposed to adverse messages, namely violence. His justifications were much in line with the parents of Faith Christian. In his opinion Boz the Bear and Veggie Tales, both Christian program were preferable subject matters to others. He even supplied that he did not like his daughter playing with her cousins as they were allowed to watch content that was not appropriate. For immigrant families income transcends cultures, but cultural capital often does not. As many of the children that participated in this study are immigrant children from Mexico, this is especially crucial to address in their understanding of popular culture as specific to the dominant (and arguably more powerful) Anglo American culture. In the quest for assimilation and globalization

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also known as “learning English” the parents are forced to abandon the cultural capital from their own home culture. This helps to highlight that in many cases working class families are not without cultural capital, they possess a separate cultural capital that is not valued in the United States. This facilitates our understanding why working class immigrant parents may endorse products that are seen as non-desirable by upper-middle class parents. With an attempt of assimilation into the dominant white culture combined with the forced abandonment of their own culture, meaning making and class discriminates evolve and change.

also played to support instructional goal such as “number sense” and “identifying similarities and differences.” In my field notes I captured the following scenario:

Lower Middle Class: Media as a Pedagogical Tool

Ms. Sophia mediated this game, reminding the children of turns and scaffolding their ability to match pictures of SpongeBob. She also joined in the conversation about SpongeBob, commenting about the subtle differences of the pictures of Sponge Bob and Patrick the Starfish. The children’s knowledge of the characters was detailed, but it was not clear to me if they knew the characters from first-hand television watching, discussions with friends in the classroom, or simply from practice playing this game.

As demonstrated in the introduction to this chapter, mainstream children’s popular culture characters were prolifically scattered throughout Faith Christian. A Winnie-the-Pooh mural was painted on one wall of the entrance area of the preschool (presumably without having paid rights to Disney). This theme continued on the hallways to the classrooms which were lined with a Pooh wallpaper border. The teachers saw this as a friendly way to welcome children and parents to the preschool center. These decorations were seen by the staff at Faith Christian as positive and as possessing a fanciful innocence. We can also read in the presence of these images an expression of the school’s view that such commercialized forms of children’s popular culture is benign. Aligning with this belief of popular culture, in contrast to the other two settings, media was an integral component of the pre-kindergarten program of Faith Christian. As described in the introduction media technology was seen as a way to facilitate learning of curriculum. Games and puzzles used as instructional materials often depicted popular culture themes and characters. Activity games such as a Dora the Explorer’s bean bag toss and board games such as a SpongeBob version of a Milton Bradley’s Memory game were

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Five children and Ms. Sophia were seated around one of the small tables in the center of the carpeted area of the room, playing a SpongeBob version of the Milton Bradley Game Memory. Each child was allowed two turns to match cards. Ms. Sophia asked the children to identify similarities and differences of pictures, each of which featured a character from SpongeBob Square Pants.

Brittany: Pineapple, I found the pineapple (the house that SpongeBob lives in). Ms. Sophia: Can you find the other one; do you remember where it might be? Brittany: Uh, here, oh (picks up a card that does not match the pineapple) it’s, it’s Sandy the Squirrel. Ms. Sophia: Put it back then and we can try next turn. Ms. Sophia engages with the children as a like minded comrade, trading comments and knowledge of the characters to such a convincing degree that I am not sure if she is familiar with the TV show or has simply played the game before.

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The inclusion of popular culture technology was overall supportive of the goals and means of the curriculum and preschool as a whole. As the preschool describes itself as “faith-based” teachers in this preschool regularly relied on videos as a way to translate difficult, abstract, biblical concepts into a manner that preschool children could easily understand. Video afforded them this opportunity. Observations of whole activities group reveal the extent to which popular culture technology was integrated in the curriculum through technology: The children return to the carpet in front of the calendar. It is time for Bible Scriptures. The preschool website describes this as a goal for the children to display “knowledge of age-appropriate Christian songs, prayer and stories.” Ms. Sophia (the teacher) asks,” What is the Scripture for today?” She point to the small plastic easel that displays a card. The large laminated card has the letter “B” and the corresponding scripture for the day. (There are scriptures that correlate with each letter of the alphabet). She reads the scripture and then rereads it with the children’s accompaniment. She next wheels the media cart in front of the children and places a tape in the VCR. Today they are going to watch a video lesson, Jay, Jay the Jet Plane: Friends Forever. Ms. Sophia tells the kids, “We are going to watch Thomas the Train.” She looks at the tape: “Oops I mean Jay Jay.” Evan: Can we watch Pocahontas? Evan: (turning to ask me) Do you like Pocahontas? I respond to Evan in a quiet voice: Do you like Pocahontas? Ms. Sophia: (overhearing our conversation) I didn’t show you Pocahontas.

Evan: Uh huh. Ms. Sophia: No, I think that Ms. Monique showed you that before mom picked you up, not me. When I later asked Evan where he saw the movie Pocahontas he answered “here”. As Evan in his dialogue with Ms. Sophia demonstrated, videos were commonly shown to children at the preschool. Although both featured characters that could be considered mainstream popular culture it is evident that they were divided into two distinct categories; educational and fun. The conflict arose as Ms. Sophia preferred to show popular culture that she felt reflected values that more closely aligned with the biblical and educational focus of the preschool within the “official” school day. Disney movies such as Pocahontas and Bambi were shown in the “aftercare” hours between two and six P.M. The lower- middle class setting had the greatest number of computers, and the children interacted with them in a greater frequency when compared to other preschools. Computer games in the classroom displayed popular culture characters such as Franklin, Little People and Winnie the Pooh. Children were able to access the games during center time and after school. The inclusion of Teddy Ruxpin, a popular culture character from the 1980’s played a crutial pedagogical role in heightening children’s access to literacy. As mentioned in the introduction he is an animatronic bear who moves his lips and eyes as if he is the storyteller. Children were able to place tape in his back and listen to stories. This “reader” enabled children to access books to a greater degree as in this preschool books were not typically read aloud, they were considered something for the children to “read” during quiet and center time. The classroom library presented limited options for the children to engage with the text. In comparison to the other two sites, at Faith Christian merchandized books made up a large

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percentage of the classroom library. They featured characters such as Dora, Disney Princesses, and the characters from Disney’s Toy Story. Ms. Sonya included these texts in the library as she felt that the inclusion of popular culture would enhance children engagement with books. Although the children were interested in the characters, their engagement with the text was limited. The popular culture texts were above the emergent reading level of preschoolers; these texts did not include a high frequency of site words or repetition; and the language was far too complex for the children to access without assistance. Consequently the children did not engage with the text but rather only with the pictures. While I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with children engaging in text through pictures, the children could have engaged with the text to a greater degree with scaffolding provided by the teacher. The children’s interaction with the books was an independent activity; at no time did I witness Ms. Sophia reading the books to the children. The expectation of independent reading meant the children had no way (other than pictures) to interpret plot, prediction, sequencing and comprehension. Demonstrated by the prolific use of popular culture technology in this setting it is safe to assume that parents and teachers expressed very little concern for the presence of popular culture technology. In this religious setting content that teachers and parents felt was anti-Christian was of much greater concern.

Reflecting on Bridging the Communication-Generation Gap through Technological Influences on Ideology and Social Class In this emerging technological age, preschools are dealing with technology and images from media in very different manners. This chapter shows that in early childhood sectors, embracing technology is far from universal and if it is brought into the classroom, depends heavily on

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the context in which it is used. As I have argued here, “understandings” and judgments regarding the appropriateness of popular culture are simply that: understandings. The rejection or inclusion of popular culture technology in pedagogical and curricular matters are culturally based, influenced by the habitus of the individuals and preschools in local communities. Their everyday practices, the choices and judgments made regarding popular culture technology, following Bourdieu (1984), are informed by factors such as social class but also the ideology of the program and parents. This chapter attempts to move towards new understandings of children and how popular culture in early childhood classrooms can be seen not as arbitrary choices (although they could certainly be) but as messages or using Kline’s (1994) understanding, as social symbols that are used by different people for different purposes. Noting this fact also points to the importance of interpretation, particularly in local communities. As acknowledged in this chapter, images such as Bratz Dolls were interpreted as glamorous for some children and parents but were considered hyper sexualized and “trashy” for others. Likewise, Disney Princesses might be seen as nostalgic, fanciful and innocent for some parents while commercialized and overtly sexual for others. Additional issues arise when considering the pedagogical implications of such choices. As shown in this chapter, parents in upper middle class preschool setting had a well honed knowledge of how certain ideas and interactions with certain materials would work to position them in more favorable class relations. Despite objections to content, parents actively endorsed ideas and images that promoted social mobility, particularly when concerned with cultural capital in the embodied state. By actively choosing certain popular culture materials, the parents recognized their role as social symbols and more often than not chose materials for educational advancement. These materials not coincidently had close alignment with school type knowledge.

Technology in Three American Preschools

This section gives you some questions and activities to help you think about how you can use some of the ideas from this chapter in your work.

Research 1. Identify pop culture icons that are evident in your classroom based on the children’s interest and parent support. Trace the origin of these icons to determine the role of technology in origin, exposure and availability. 2. Interview your parents to determine their perceptions of pop culture icons as to which are accepted and which are considered inappropriate. Is there a different in these perceptions based on income level? 3. Select a book and a technology based version of the characters or story. Place these in two separate areas of your room and collect frequency of use by children when given free choice of activities. Which venue do children most often use?

Reflect 1. What forms of technology portray pop culture icons in your classroom? 2. What pop culture icons do you consider appropriate in a preschool setting and which do you consider inappropriate? Identify what may influence your decision.(i.e. your religious beliefs, your social status, your peer group influence) 3. Types of preschools generally serve relatively economical and culturally homogeneous groups of children. How might this impact the future social and economic structure of this country? 4. How does the connection of ideology and social class influence your acceptance or rejection of technology as a pedagogical tool?

Practice 1. Identify core learning standards in your classroom. Plan how technology icons can support the outcomes. 2. Within preschool sectors ideology and social class plays a major role for the type of popular culture technology that children in the United States will interact with in various preschools. How will this influence your classroom environment? What can you do to insure children are not labeled by their preference and interaction with technology in your classroom? 3. Work with parents in your classroom to remove social stigma from technology pop culture perceptions.

REFERENCES Althusser, L. (1970). Lenin and philosophy and other essays (B. Brewster translation). NewYork, NY: Monthly Review Press. Apple, M. W. (2007). Foreword in J. A. Van Galen & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), Late to class: Social class and schooling in the new economy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Bakhtin, M. (1984). Rabelais and his world. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Bakhtin, M. (2009). The Bakhtin reader: Selected writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, Voloshinov. London, UK: Bloomsbury. Barthes, R. (1967). Elements of Semiology. (A. Lavers & C. Smith translation). London, UK: Jonathan Cape. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital . In Richardson, J. (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for